8.6 Segregation278.7 Fraud 288.8 “Rational” agriculture 288.9 The Case of Slow Food: organic farming, eating habits, taste and cultural features29References 324This report on biotechnology, food and nutrition is aconsolidation of knowledge in potentials, opportunitiesand developmental processes in applying biotechnology forimprovements in human nutrition.Biotechnology is not alien to the food sector; indeed,its applications in agriculture have formed a major partof the ﬁeld even in the early days of biotechnology. TheGreen Revolution of the 1960s demonstrated the immensepower of manipulating genes for food production.Continuous innovations in biotechnology have led to theavailability of a wide range of services and applicationsrelated to food production, processing and marketing.But while society in general has beneﬁted from the rise ofbiotechnology, its pie beneﬁts remain unevenly distributed,with developing countries getting the lesser share. Thepromise of biotechnology has to be pursued and utilizedto push and strengthen the sustainable developmentagenda particularly in developing countries. This reportshows that this potential could be harnessed if framed byfavorable policy environments backed up by research anddevelopment, education and public awareness.This report is part of a series of publications by the UNU-IASin biotechnology; the report is tailored to offer knowledgeat the interface of biotechnology and policy-making inorder to link knowledge to development opportunitiesthat might exist at this juncture. It cites progress invarious developments in food and nutrition vis-à-vis theprospects of biotechnology as an industry and as governedby existing policies in various countries and internationalcollaborations.Being an institute for advanced studies, among theobjectives of UNU-IAS is to promote dialogues betweenscience and society to inform policy-making. I hope thisreport would generate interest and new ideas among policymakers, professionals, scientists and other groups who areconcerned and hopeful of the promise and potential ofbiotechnology in human welfare and development.A.H. ZakriDirector, UNU-IASForeword5The health of populations depend largely on what theyeat; and what and how much populations eat concernsconsumers, governments, food manufacturers, consumeradvocates, and environmentalists alike. These concernsrevolve around issues of their safety, their origins, theirhealth effects – both preventive and therapeutic, theirnovelty and taste and their adequacy to feed growingpopulations particularly in developing countries where largeportions are either under or malnourished. Current formsof biotechnologiesbring enormous potential to addressingthese concerns. It can now help not just in growingmore varieties of foodstuffs but also in the productionof functional foodstuffs, i.e. foods with therapeuticproperties; correct some vitamin and micronutrientdeﬁciencies; offer healthier versions of popular foodstuffswithout affecting the taste, e.g. sweeteners, bitter oracid suppressors; and canalso help trace food origin andauthenticity through correlating genetic markers withmeat quality, genetic tagging of aquacultural species andeven DNA ﬁngerprinting of grapevine varieties.In theareas mentioned, biotechnology has already been makingsigniﬁcant inroads in delivering the potential to address thefundamental food and health concerns of a growing worldpopulation. Social acceptance for biotechnologies by thepublic has yet to solidify and spread to reach the acceptanceother technologies in other sectors enjoy but the signs areencouraging and industry has so far held on to the currentlevel of reception and acceptance from consumers, whileurging governments to give more incentives to help itfurther.Executive summary6How healthy we are depends largely on what, how and howmuch we feed ourselves and what we take into our bodiesconsists of foods that sustain us and drugs that heal ourdysfunctions and imbalances. Deep in our bodies, we arehosts to complex microﬂora, comprising a wide range ofdifferent bacterial species that play several roles: supplyingtheir human host with additional value from foodstuffs;protecting against intestinal infections; and contributing tothe development of the immune system.Many health-improving properties of certain foodstuffsare already well known: dairy products may strengthen theimmune system; fruits and vegetables contain vitaminsthat protect humans against infections; meat and ﬁshdeliver proteins important for the growth and developmentof the young body; ﬁbre-rich foodstuffs are importantfor the intestinal transport of digested food; and severalphytochemicals have a long-term protective functionagainst cardiac diseases and, probably, cancer (EuropeanCommission, 2002).Food safety as well as the health beneﬁts from foodpervading discussions in every sphere of society havebecome real, pressing concerns for consumers as theywonder whether the sources and objects of their diningpleasures are fraught with dangers to warrant their fear orconstant vigilance.1.1Obesity: a world epidemicIn2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) produced areport that warned governments about a growing epidemicthat threatened public health: obesity. In some countries,more than half the population is overweight, and inDecember 2001 the US surgeon-general, David Satcher, gavea warning that obesity could soon kill as many people eachyear as cigarette-smoking (The Economist, 2003).The World Health Organization (WHO) general assembly,held in May 2004 in Geneva, had on its agenda a documententitled ‘World Strategy for Food, Physical Exercise andHealth’. Through this document, the WHO wanted to drawattention to the non-contagious diseases (cardio-vasculardiseases, type-2 diabetes, obesity, cancers, etc.), whichrepresent 60 per cent of world mortality and about 50 percent of world morbidity. In addition to information andawareness campaigns, the WHO recommended a morestringent regulation on advertisement and labelling offoodstuffs, because ‘consumers have the right to obtaincorrect, standardized and understandable informationon the contents of foodstuffs, so as to make enlightenedchoices’. The WHO’s forecasts predicted that cardio-vasculardiseases would be the ﬁrst cause of mortality in developingcountries by 2010, a status that is already the case inthe industrialized countries. Atherosclerosis – a diseaseassociated with the consumption of foods containing toomuch fat and sugars, a sedentary lifestyle and smoking– together with type-2 diabetes and obesity are real worldepidemics (Benkimoun, 2004a).The increase in the number of persons suffering fromtype-2 diabetes is a matter of high concern. The ﬁgure of150 million patients may double in 2005 especially withthe rise of those in pre-diabetic stages, characterized byintolerance to glucose and abnormal glycaemia beforebreakfast, as well as in the frequency of the metabolicsyndrome. The latter is probably three to four timesmore frequent than the established type-2 diabetes,and it is a combination of obesity (specially an excess ofabdominal fat, with an increase of girth), an abnormalcontent of lipids (particularly triglycerides) in the blood,and hypertension. This syndrome is caused by an excess ofbody fat, especially in the abdomen, a sedentary way of lifeand inappropriate eating habits. In addition, the release ofgreat quantities of free fatty acids by the body fatty tissueresults in insulin resistance; as the activity of the hormoneis inhibited, glucose cannot penetrate into the musclesand consequently glycaemia rises. There is also the releaseby the fatty tissue of adipocytokines, anti-inﬂammatorysubstances that reduce the secretion of another hormone,adiponectin, which normally protects against insulinresistance and inﬂammation (Benkimoun, 2004a).Being overweight increases the risk of suffering fromseveral related illnesses and may contribute to an earlierdeath. Women who are overweight run a risk ﬁve timeshigher than average of developing type-2 diabetes whilethose who are severely obese have a risk of more than 50times higher. Obesity is also implicated in cancer: a recentstudy in USA showed that 14 per cent of cancer deaths inmen and 20 per cent in women could be attributed to it.Being overweight is also one of the main causes of heartdiseases, the world’s major cause of death, above wars,malaria and AIDS (The Economist, 2003).This problem does not seem less acute in the developingworld. Asians and black Africans are even more susceptibleto obesity and its related diseases than are Caucasians. Forinstance, 3 per cent of Chinese and 5.5 per cent of Indiansare diabetic, compared with 3 per cent of British people.There are more new cases of diabetes in China and Indiathan there are in the rest of the world put together. Thisis despite the fact that China was already spending 1.6per cent of its annual gross domestic product treatingnon-communicable diseases, mostly obesity-related (TheEconomist, 2003).The ﬁnger of blame seems to point to eating habitsand also at the quality of foodstuffs (with implicationsfor food manufacturing companies). The trend in foodmanufacturing has been to produce cheaper food, whichin some ways could have adverse human health effects.For instance, hydrogenated vegetable oil – vegetable fatmade solid by adding hydrogen atoms – is the nutritionists’current enemy. Widely used as a cheap substitute for butterand cream, it is the main dietary source of trans-fatty acids,heavily implicated in heart diseases. Some companies aretherefore removing them from their products for fear oflawsuits. Cheap food may also make people eat more, andfood companies certainly think giving people more food fortheir money makes them buy more. That is why portionsof manufactured food and soft drinks have been growingin size and volume. Companies are now increasingly underpressure to stop selling to people more food for less money,but it is hard to reverse that trend (The Economist, 2003).1 The relationship between food and health7Tasty foodstuffs are generally sugary, fatty and salty. Tasteis as much instinct as habit, and once people are used tosugary, fatty and salty foods, they ﬁnd it hard to give themup. Producing healthier foodstuffs that are also attractive toconsumers’ tastes could help solve the problem, in additionto education on better nutrition, food consumption habitsand regular exercise.Health food is not a turn-of-the-21st-century invention.In 1985, people gave up caffeine; in 1987, salt; in 1994, fat.Now it is carbohydrates. But contemporary health-foodconsciousness may have stronger foundations. The needfor healthier food may also be a matter of demographicsacross timelines related to “demographic evolution” as thepresident of food system design at Cargill, Inc., pointed out.In 1975, there were 230 million over 65 years of age; 420million in 2000 and 830 million was the estimate for 2025.As people become older, their willingness to spend moneyon staying healthy increases (The Economist, 2003).Science has also contributed to the growing health-foodconsciousness. According to New Nutrition Business, a USconsultancy ﬁrm, in 1996 there were 120 papers on nutritionscience in peer-reviewed journals; in 2002, there were over1000. With more scientiﬁc data, regulators (in the USA atleast) are more willing to evaluate products and if so foundwith basis, allow health claims on products; and healthclaims increase sales. The Atkins diet, during its peak days,which has boosted sales of eggs and meat, and hit potatoes,is one manifestation of consumers’ determination to tryvarious ways of programming their eating habits (TheEconomist, 2003).Supermarkets also cater to this market. For instance,Waitrose’s Perfectly Balanced Meals claim no more than 4per cent fat, very little salt and no ‘butylated hydroxanisoleor hydroxytoluene’ at all; and sales are rising at 20-25 percent annually. Sales of nutritional supplements have morethan doubled in the USA in the six years after the Food andDrug Administration (FDA) liberalized labelling laws. In2000, sales amounted to $17 billion and were increasing at10 per cent a year (The Economist, 2003).In the United Kingdom, by the end of February 2004, areport on public health commissioned by the governmentcited obesity among its main worries. Previous to that,the Prime Minister’s strategy unit ﬂoated the idea of a ‘fattax’ on foods that induce obesity; and in 2003, the FoodStandards Agency – the industry regulation – advocateda ban on advertising junk food to children. Yet the UKgovernment dismissed the idea of a fat tax, and the culturesecretary stated she was skeptical about an advertisingban. The health secretary said the government wanted tobe neither a ‘nanny state’ nor a ‘Pontius Pilate state, whichwashes its hands of its citizens’ health’ (The Economist,2003).1.1.1

Obesity among childrenIn France, obesity among children has been increasing sincethe early 1970s, particularly in the least-privileged socialcategories. The percentage of overweight schoolchildrenhas increased from 3 per cent in 1965 to 5 percent in 1980, 12per cent in 1996 and 16 per cent in 2003. The current ﬁguresare those prevailing in the USA during the 1970s, but therate of increase is similar to that of the US. This illness hasbecome a major challenge to public health and has beenconsidered an epidemic by the French National Institutefor Health and Medical Research (INSERM). According toJean-Philippe Ginardet of the Trousseau hospital in Paris,obesity among children is a frequent, serious and societaldisease, difﬁcult to treat, which leads, in the short term, tohypertension, diabetes and increase in the concentrationof blood cholesterol. It paves the way for cardio-vasculardiseases among adults, i.e. for the ﬁrst cause of mortality(Blanchard, 2004).Since 1992, evaluations have been carried out in schools oftwo cities in northern France. The ﬁrst evaluation showedthat children informed by their teachers had betternutritional knowledge and could therefore adopt bettereating habits. The second evaluation, carried out in 1992and 1997, revealed that within the families substantialchange had occurred with respect to a better schedule ofmeals and to a signiﬁcant reduction of animal fats in theirdiet. As a result, between 1997 and 2000, the incidence ofobesity in the children in these cities has increased muchless: +4 percent among girls and +1 percent among boyscompared to the whole region (Nord-Pas-de-Calais) thatshowed an increase of 95 per cent among girls and +195 percent among boys. This experimental approach to preventingobesity has lead to the launching of a ﬁve-year campaignnamed ‘Together, let us prevent obesity among children’by the Observatory of Food Habits and Weight, and theAssociation for the Prevention and Treatment of Obesity inPediatrics (Benkimoun, 2004).Obesity is not a disease that is treated only with theassistance of physicians; it also concerns the family andsociety as a whole. While there may be basis to claim thatthe lack of exercise and the increasing time spent watchingthe television or using the computer, as well as junk foodare considered important causal factors, obesity’s etiologyis not conﬁned to lifestyles and habits. Family historiesplay an important role too, supported by the fact that 57per cent of obese children have at least one overweightparent. This underlines the genetic role as well as theconditions attending to the pre- and post-natal periods andto subsequent psychic and social factors in causing obesity(Blanchard, 2004).New epidemiological studies are needed to betterunderstand the causes of the obesity epidemic. InFrance, a number of measures have been taken by theMinistry of Health within the framework of their NationalProgramme for Nutrition Health (PNNS), launched in 2001and the nine priority objectives which aim at stoppingthe prevalence of obesity among children. These include:the distribution of food and education activities in someprimary and secondary schools; setting up a workinggroup on ‘food advertisement and the child’ with a view toreaching a compromise between the economic interestsof the agri-food industry and public health constraints;recommendations to support breastfeeding; publication ofa guide for children and teenagers on food and nutrition.Physicians are requested to detect obesity as early as8possible on the basis of reference graphs and a disk formeasuring the index of body mass provided to them sinceNovember 2003. The WHO guide to measuring this indexis as follows: the ratio of body weight (in kg) to height(in meters) raised to the power of 2; a resulting numberabove 25 is considered overweight and above 30 is “obese.”These tools enable the physician to ﬁnd out the periodwithin which the accumulation of fat occurs – whether itis between the ages of 5-6 years and or before. With onlya 38% success rate of treatment among children, earlydetection of obesity may improve their chances. (Blanchard,2004).In Italy, since the early 1990s a centre has been workingon the treatment of obesity among children in Atri, asmall town of 11,000 inhabitants in the Abruzzes region.A recent survey in elementary schools showed that 31.6per cent of children had a weight above the norm and 6.7per cent of them were obese. Of the latter, the centre’sphysicians considered that only 5 per cent of obesity casescould be related to genetic or endocrine causes, while therest were caused by bad eating habits. It did not seemto be a question of quantity of food but of poor eatinghabits. Among these habits the physicians listed: the lackof breakfast, too many snacks composed of industrialfoodstuffs, lack of, or very little consumption of freshfruit and vegetables. The absence of exercise was also anaggravating factor (Mola, 2004).The treatment of obesity cases begins with the involvementof the family. Once a week, children should come to thecentre with their parents and sometimes with theirgrandparents (if the latter are those who cook at home). Inthe centre’s restaurant, a meal is served to them, containingpasta without fat, ﬁsh, fruit and vegetables. Children are notforced to eat meals to which they are not accustomed; theyjust have to try. The parents also eat the same meals. Thenthe children meet with the psychologist and nutritionist;the parents follow. Family participation is crucial, becausethe parents should familiarize themselves with the carefullyprepared and measured meals and above all they mustunderstand that the children should not eat quickly, thatpasta should not be left aside, that they should not eatwhile watching television, because this usually causes thechild to lose control of what he/she eats. The whole familyshould reconsider its way of preparing meals and eatingthem; that is why the centre’s specialists insist that bothchildren and grown-ups have their meals together and eatthe same foodstuffs (Mola, 2004).During the summer, about 40 children between 7 and10 years old are welcomed in a camp, located in a ruraltourist centre seven kilometers from Atri. At the summercamp, children’s nutrition is strictly controlled and physicalexercise is a frequent practice, while television is prohibited.The objective is to consolidate the new relationshipbetween children and their food. They learn how to identifyfoodstuffs through blind-tasting, i.e., they develop theirsense of smell and touch through handling them. It hasbeen observed that children who attend the summer campmake remarkable progress with respect to their nutritionalhealth and eating habits. This could be decisive in thetreatment of obesity (Mola, 2004nstant vigilance.1.2Changing eating habits to improvehealth and well-beingPeople are consuming more and more food outside theirhomes. They eat in bars, restaurants, and other cateringenterprises. The latest ﬁgures on the consumer barometerindicated that conﬁdence in foodstuffs was undergoing aslow but sustained increase, in the European Union, withthe notable exception of fast food. In the Mediterraneancountries, the onslaught of fast food has destroyed goodfeeding habits but instead of the expected high obesityrate, the Mediterranean diet resulted in less cholesterolin the blood, and higher life expectancy. But a study byEurostat – the Statistics Centre of the European Union– warned that the South was no longer what it was.Not only have the Latins ceased to be slimmer than theGermans and the British. No less than 34.4 per cent ofGreek men were overweight, as opposed to 29.5 per cent oftheir British counterparts and 28 per cent of Germans. TheGreek population now possesses the highest proportionof overweight members among countries of the EuropeanUnion, followed by Spain with 32%. However, the Greekshad the lowest rate of dementia among the over 65’s,and they still enjoy one of the highest life expectancies inthe EU, with outstanding defenses against colon cancer,hypertension and heart attacks. This maybe attributedto their high consumption rates for olive oil – 20 litresper person per annum – i.e. seven times more than theSpaniards’ (Sánchez, Bardón, 2004).Some years ago, attention was drawn to the ‘Mediterraneanparadox’: Spain, France and Italy had fewer cardiovascularillnesses than their neighbours in Northern Europe, eventhough there were no signiﬁcant differences in bodyweight. The difference lay in the diet, which includesabundant fruit and vegetables (rich in vitamins and anti-oxidants), olive oil as the main source of fat (as opposedto an excessive use of butter and other saturated fats),more ﬁsh (rich in omega-3 fatty acids which protect bloodvessels), the reasonable consumption of wine with meals(one glass a day has an anti-oxidant effect and may increasethe content of high-density lipoproteins – HDL– in theblood), and of generous inclusions of garlic, onions and nuts.However, in time, the greater consumption of meat andlesser consumption of vegetables, more sauces rather thanoil and vinegar dressings, whisky and other spirits insteadof wine, soft drinks instead of water, and a sedentarylifestyle have led to more digestive problems, higher bloodpressure and more kidney failures and respiratory illnesses.According to the Spanish sociologist and journalist VicenteVerdú, ‘health has declined proportionally with the rise inthe economy, and gastronomic ignorance has spread in pacewith the cultural revolution (Sánchez Bardón, 2004).In the United Kingdom, there were signs that the problemof obesity was not necessarily worsening. For instance,while it enjoys the title of being one of the world’s biggestconsumers of chocolate, over the four years to 2002, salesof chocolate fell every year: 2 per cent by volume and 7 percent by value over the period. In February 2004, the newchief executive ofﬁcer of NestléRowntree described it as ‘abusiness in crisis’; although the company denied later onthat there was a crisis, admitting only that sales of Kit Kat,9its widely-known brand, fell by 2 per cent in 2003. CadburySchweppes, the United Kingdom’s biggest producer offattening foodstuffs, stated that ﬁve years ago, chocolatemade it up to 80 per cent of sales; that was now down toa half. Five years ago, 85 per cent of sold beverages weresweet; that is now down to 56 per cent. The rest was mostlyjuice. Sale of diet drinks – which made up a third of thesales of ﬁzzy drinks – have been growing at 5 per cent a year,while sales of fattening foodstuffs had been stagnant (The

Economist, 2004a).In British supermarkets, people are buying healthierfood. According to Tesco’s director of corporate affairs, itsHealthy Living (lower calorie) range grew by 12 per cent in2003, twice the growth in overall sales. Sales of fruit andvegetables were growing faster than overall sales, too. Thatmay be partly because fresh produce is becoming morevaried, there are more of them available all year roundand better supply encourages more demand. Five yearsago, Tesco stocked six or seven varieties of tomato, whilenowadays it stocks 15. A study carried out by the Universityof Southampton on a big new supermarket in a poor areaof Leeds concluded that after it opened, two-thirds of thosewith the worst diets now ate more fruit and vegetables (TheEconomist,2004a).Cafés and restaurants report an increase in healthy eatingtoo. Prêt-A-Manger, a sandwich chain, stated that salesof salads grew by 63 per cent in 2003, compared with 6percent overall sales growth. Even McDonald’s, whichintroduced fruit salad by early 2003, had sold 10 millionportions since (The Economist,2004a).There are also good signs in the area of physical exercise.Gym membership ﬁgures suggest that British people atleast intend to be less indolent. According to Mintel, amarket-research company, there were 3.8 million membersof private gyms in 2003, up from 2.2 million in 1998. Theoverall results of these favourable trends was that theaverage man became thinner in 2002 while women’s BMIwas static, at least according to body-mass-index (BMI)which have only began to be recorded in 2002. One year ofcourse does not make a trend, but a decrease in America’sweight in 2003, also for the ﬁrst time, supports the ideathat something is changing in the obesity trends of the twoof the most developed countries in the world. On the otherhand, where the rich lead, the poor tend to follow – partlybecause the poor become richer over time, and partlybecause health messages tend to reach the better-educatedﬁrst and the less-educated later. That happened withsmoking, which the rich countries gave up years ago, andthe poor are nowadays trying to abandon (The Economist,

2004a).As for government intervention in reducing obesity rates,campaigners for the “fat tax” point out that that this kindof intervention could aid the efforts to reduce obesity ratesas government intervention did for smoking. But that maynot necessarily be the case with food because consumersnow are constantly assailed by messages from companiestelling them to lose weight. Also, peer pressure amongteens on weight issues may have more impact on teenagersthan ministerial action (The Economist,2004a).However, some forms of government intervention havetriumphed. For example, on 8 April 2004, the Frenchparliament examined a bill that aimed at prohibitingautomatic machines vending confectionery and soda inschools, and also on setting new rules on the advertisementof foodstuffs during television shows targeted to youth.On 30 July 2004, the French Parliament voted in favour ofprohibiting as of 1 September 2005 vending machines inschools. This vote was cheered by 250 pediatricians andnutritionists working in hospitals who earlier on wroteto the minister of health a letter titled ‘For a consistentnutrition policy of public health in France’.The French traditional morning snack has been questioned.In January 2004, the French Agency for Food SanitarySafety (AFSSA) has published an advice against it; theAgency stated that the concern about compensating foodinsufﬁciency among a small minority of children (less than10 per cent attend school without having had breakfast)leads to an unbalance of the diet of all schoolchildren; theadditional food intake causes an excess of calories whichleads to an increase in the obesity rate among children(Blanchard, 2004).1.2.1

Vitamin-A deﬁciencyMore than 250 million children less than ﬁve-years old areexposed to the risk of vitamin-A deﬁciency worldwide.About 500,000 of them go blind annually and 2 million diefrom this deﬁciency every year (2003-2004).To address this deﬁciency, several strategies can be adopted:medical supplementation, i.e. prescribing vitamin-Apills; the enrichment of food with vitamin A in the agro-industry or when preparing food at the communitarylevel; and inducing the diversiﬁcation of food resourcesthat are locally available. The latter strategy was adoptedin a pilot project carried out in Burkina Faso, West Africa,in conjunction with promoting the consumption of non-reﬁned red palm oil. From 1999 to 2001, in collaborationwith researchers from the University of MontrealDepartment of Nutrition and from the Health ResearchInstitute at Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, scientists of theFrench Development Research Institute (IRD) Unit onNutrition, Food and Societies, have tested the efﬁcacy ofred palm oil on the body’s vitamin A as it tested these onmothers and children under ﬁve years of age in the centre-east of the country, where this oil is not usually consumed.This oil, well known for its high content of beta-carotene – aprecursor of vitamin A – is produced and mostly consumedin the north-west of Burkina Faso (Zagréet al.,2003).Palm oil has therefore been transported to, and sold on,the sites of the pilot project in order to evaluate its impacton vitamin-A deﬁciency under conditions where womenbought the oil freely and voluntarily. The women werepreviously informed about the beneﬁcial effects of red palmoil through debates, lectures, theatre performances, etc.(Zagréet al.,2003).The impact of palm oil was evaluated among womenand children, at the beginning and the end of the pilotproject through testing the amount of retinol in the blood10serum. Results showed that after two years, the quantityof vitamin A ingested by the mothers and children whoconsumed red palm oil increased markedly: increase from41 per cent to 120 per cent of safety inputs among themothers and from 36 per cent to 97 per cent among thechildren. Simultaneously, the proportion of mothers andchildren having a retinol content in the serum lower thanthe recommended threshold (0,70µmol/l) at the beginningof the study, has decreased from 62 per cent to 30 per centfor the women and from 84.5 per cent to 67 per cent for thechildren. These results demonstrated that red palm oil wasan efﬁcient food supplement in real commercial conditionsfor combating vitamin-A deﬁciency (Zagréet al.,2003).In addition, about half of the women involved in thestudy modiﬁed their eating habits within two years whilevoluntarily consuming this foodstuff that was new tothem. The consumption of red palm oil could thereforebe incorporated, like other food items rich in provitaminA (fruit and vegetables), into national programmes forcontrolling vitamin-A deﬁciency in Burkina Faso, where theafore-mentioned pilot project is being extended, and inother countries in the Sahelian zone (Zagréet al.,2003).1.2.2

Artiﬁcial sweeteners: the case of sucraloseSucralose is an artiﬁcial sweetener that is arguably thefood industry’s hottest new ingredient, turning up ineverything from the recently launched ‘mid-calorie’ versionsof Coke and Pepsi, to low-carbohydrate ice cream. Yet thissweetener was actually invented in the 1970s. Its successhas been the reward for the decades of toil by Tate & Lyle,the British ingredient-maker that patented the substancein 1976 and is currently selling it as a sugar substitute tofood manufacturers. Johnson & Johnson, the US health-caregroup, is selling sucralose for home use under the brandname Splenda (Jones, 2004).The innovative sweetener is actually chlorinated canesugar (sucrose). During the manufacturing process,three hydrogen-oxygen groups on a sucrose moleculeare replaced by three tightly bound chlorine atoms. Theresulting molecule (sucralose) is about 600 times sweeterthan sugar and passes through the body without beingbroken down. The chlorinated agent is sodium chloride,and the underlying chemistry has not put off consumersor food manufacturers. Tate & Lyle has calculated thatthe worldwide market for ‘intense sweeteners’ was worth$1 billion a year at manufacturers’ selling prices. In therelatively short time it has been available, sucralose haspicked up 13 per cent of this market, giving it second placebehind aspartame’s 55 per cent, according to Tate & Lyle.Its compatibility with low carbohydrate dieting, not tomention direct praise from the late Dr Atkins himself, hashelped (Jones, 2004).In the US, Splenda is now the leading sugar substitute,having surged ahead of the likes of Equal and Sweet’N Low.IRI, the Chicago-based market research company, revealedthat Splenda accounted for 43 per cent of the sugarsubstitutes bought through US stores – excluding Wal-Mart – to May 2004. Sucralose is also making signiﬁcantin-roads into the food-ingredients market. Both The Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo., Inc., were using it in their new ‘mid-calorie’ colas, Coca-Cola C2 and Pepsi Edge, which havebeen designed to contain half the calories of the regularoffering without diluting the sweetness as much as currentdiet versions. Because it performs better at staying sweetat high temperatures than other artiﬁcial sweeteners,sucralose can be used in foodstuffs that previously relied onsugar, such as microwaveable popcorn. Because of its bettersweetening performance at high temperatures, McNeilNutritionals, the Johnson & Johnson’s unit responsible forSplenda, was persuaded to introduce a bigger pack size forSplenda to cater for demand from bakeries. This 5lb ‘baker’sbag’ retailed at $6.99-$7.99 (Jones, 2004).Although the original patent dated back to 1976, sucralosehad to wait until the 1990s for the ﬁrst wave of regulatoryapprovals to come through. In 1991, it was cleared byCanadian authorities. Australia gave it the go-ahead in1993. Tate & Lyle applied for US approval in 1987. After along time preparing all the technical information requiredfor the application, US clearance was granted in 1998.In the EU, sucralose had already been available in theUnited Kingdom, Ireland and the Netherlands but onlygained approval for use in all European countries by early2004 after the publication of an amendment to the EUsweeteners directive (Jones, 2004).The swelling demand for sucralose led to speculation thatthe sole manufacturing plant in McIntosh, Alabama, mightnot cope. The factory used to be jointly owned by Tate& Lyle and McNeil Nutritionals, but the British companytook full ownership in 2004 as they redrew their sucralosepartnership. In June 2004, Tate & Lyle announced the plantwould be expanded at a cost of $29 million, the work beingcompleted in January 2006 (Jones, 2004).As for its safety to consumers’ health, sucralose has facedclaims spread through the Internet, as aspartame hadbeen in its time, that it was not safe, in spite of obtainingofﬁcial clearance in many countries. However, the Center forScience in the Public Interest, a US lobby group noted for itsscepticism of the food industry, declared that there was noreason to suggest that sucralose caused any harm (Jones,2004).112.1 Functional foodstuffsThe concept of ‘functional’ foodstuffs was deﬁned in Japanby the mid-1980s. Japan had developed diet productswith therapeutic properties. In many cases, these werefermented dairy products containing microorganismshaving a favourable effect on the digestive tract and itsprocesses. A functional foodstuff should be able to modifyone or more organic functions favourably, in addition toits nutritional effect. For these products to be labelled as“nutraceutics” or “nutraceuticals”, their therapeutic roleshould be demonstrated. These kinds of studies are ofparticular importance in the case of therapeutic claimsagainst cancer and vascular diseases. A precursor ofnutraceutics is cod liver oil, which has greatly contributed tothe control of rickets, a consequence of vitamin-D deﬁciency.In Europe and the USA, large-scale studies involving tens ofthousands of volunteers are being carried out to determinethe preventive action of vitamins A- and E-enrichedsubstances and selenium-containing compounds on somepathological conditions resulting from the deﬁciency ofthese vitamins and selenium(European Commission, 2002).In the 1990s, the concept of the potential beneﬁt offunctional foodstuffs has become widespread, and theresearch carried out has led to its ﬁrst products: an ‘anti-cholesterol’ oil, derived from maize; a rice deprived of itsmost allergenic properties; and a grapevine synthesizingmore resveratrol (an anti-oxidant well known for its impacton cardio-vascular diseases). By mid-2003, David Sinclair – apathologist at Harvard University – and colleagues reportedin the journalNatureon resveratrol, a compound that couldlengthen the life of a yeast (Sacharomyces) cell by 80 percent. Resveratrol activates enzymes that prevent cancer,stave off cell-death and boost cellular repair systems. Thisnaturally occurring molecule builds up in undernourishedanimals and plants attacked by fungi. Wine does notcontain much resveratrol and the compound degradesin both the glass and the body. A pill might work better,and a provisional patent has been ﬁled. D. Sinclair seemsoptimistic about the effect of resveratrol on extendinghuman life expectancy.During the summer of 1999, Japan published a list of foodof speciﬁed health use (foshu) including 149 commercialproducts with a certiﬁcate from the Ministry

of Healthand Well-being. In the USA and Europe, the consumerscan buy these pharma-foods or nutraceutics. The worldnutraceutical market value was estimated at $50 billion in2004 (Oomah, 2003). On 17 November 1999, Novartis AGannounced the launching in Switzerland and the UnitedKingdom of a ﬁrst line of nutraceutical products. Even ifonly several dozens of nutraceuticals are currently known,the nutraceutical industry is steadily poised to grow.2.2Industrial production of healthierfoodstuffsFood science and biotechnology can lead to substantialinnovations in the production of healthier foodstuffs aswell as increased proﬁts by major food companies as in theperiod 2003-2004. Consider Nestlé (established in 1867).The group is selling beverages (e.g. Nescafé, Nesquik),mineral water, dairy products, ice-creams (Häagen-Dazs),precooked meals, chocolate, pet food and cosmeticproducts. In 2002, Nestlé’s annual turnover amounted to87.7 billion Swiss Francs (€57.2 billion), broken down asfollows: beverages, including mineral water (23.5 billionSwiss Francs); dairy products (23.2 billion SF); precookedmeals (16 billion SF); confectionery (10.2 billion SF); pet food(9.8 billion SF); cosmetic products (5 billion SF). However,in 2003, net proﬁt decreased to 6.2 billion SF, 17.3 per centless than in 2002, owing to the weak economic growth inEurope and monetary ﬂuctuations. Nestlé’s biggest marketis Europe with sales of 28.5 billion SF, followed by theAmerican markets (27.6 billion SF). The Asia-Paciﬁc regionalso became a priority for the group’s development with theturnover in that region reaching 14.4 billion SF in 2003.Nestlé spends 1.35 per cent of sales on research anddevelopment – a lot for a food company–and wasemploying 250,000 persons in 2003-2004 worldwide. Itexplores the frontiers of nutrition research to determinewhat people should and should not be eating, todevelop products such as milk with added long-chainpolyunsaturated fatty acids and non-dairy products fortiﬁedwith calcium for the lactose-intolerant individuals.Yakult – a bland, sweet, yellowish drink – is also a goodexample of industry that made good in healthy drinks. Itis produced by the Japanese company Shirota, founded in1955. Minoru Shirota discoveredLactobacillus casei shirota

in 1930. The product was launched in Europe in 1994and since then has spread across the world. It claims thebeneﬁcial effects of lactobacilli on the intestinal microﬂora.It represented a $2 billion global business, and encouragedcompetition from other companies (The Economist, 2003).Cargill, Inc., whose core business is commodities, employed200 food scientists in 2003, up from 20 in 2000. It hasdeveloped many products with new ingredients, includingBon Appétit,a raspberry tea with soybean isoﬂavones,which ‘may help promote bone health and relieve some ofthe symptoms of menopause’ (The Economist, 2003).While Kraft Foods and Cadbury Schweppes claimedthey were removing some of the trans-fats out of theirfoodstuffs, PepsiCo, Inc., stated it has taken all the trans-fatsout of its Frito-Lay snacks. This move was to a large extentthe cause of a 30 per cent boost in fourth-quarter (2003)earnings. The drinks and snacks maker’s quarterly proﬁt wasalso lifted by lower costs associated with its 2001 mergerwith Quaker Oats. Fourth-quarter earnings were $897million, or 51 cents a share, compared with $689 million, or39 cents a share, in the same quarter a year earlier. Revenuerose 9.4 per cent to $8.1 billion. The company continues toexpand its snacks line with healthier offerings, e.g. newcrisps, using maize oil rather than oil containing trans-fats. Frito-Lay’s North American sales grew 6 per cent to$2.7 billion in the fourth quarter (2003), with volume up asmaller 3 per cent. The unit controlled almost two-thirds ofthe US snacks market. PepsiCo, Inc., is the world’s fourth-biggest agri-food group, behind Nestlé, Kraft Foods andUnilever. In 2003, its turnover reached $26.971 billion and itsnet proﬁt was $4.781 billion. Present in 160 countries, it had140,000 employees.2 Production of healthier food12The modiﬁcation of vegetable oils is one of the key areas ofplant and crop biotechnology, the overall objective beingto increase their content in unsaturated fatty acids (mainlyoleic acid) and to decrease that of saturated ones throughconventional breeding, induced mutations or geneticengineering. Extensive work has been carried out on oilseedrape (canola), soybeans, peanut and sunﬂower with goodresults that led to the commercialization of several products.Palm oil, which contains an equal proportion of saturatedand unsaturated fatty acids, in addition to beta-carotene,is also a current research target, particularly of researchersat the Palm Oil Research Institute of Malaysia (PORIM).In addition, replacing triglycerides with diglycerides invegetable oils render them free of trans-hydrogenated fatsand good cooking oils, e.g. ‘econa oil’ in Japan.Inulin and oligofructosans refer to a group of fructose-containing carbohydrate polymers (fructans) which, inmany plant species, act as protective agents againstdehydration and cold temperatures and also offer manyhealth beneﬁts to humans, mainly in the stimulation of thegrowth of beneﬁcial micro-organisms called biﬁdobacteria.These bacteria are sometimes used as a probiotic additiveto foodstuffs such as yoghurt, as they can defeat harmfulbacteria in the intestines and produce compounds withgood health beneﬁts. These dietary fructans are alsoreported to have a lipid-lowering potential. They are notdigested in the upper gastro-intestinal tract and thereforehave a reduced caloric value. They share the properties ofdietary ﬁbres without causing a rise in serum glucose orstimulating insulin secretion (Georges, 2003).Inulin and oligofructosans can be used to fortify foodswith ﬁbre or improve the texture of low-fat foods withoutresulting in adverse organoleptic effects. Most of thesetwo products currently on the market are either chemicallysynthesized or extracted from plant sources such aschicory roots. Oligofructosans are shorter chain polymers,highly soluble and provide 30 per cent to 50 per cent ofthe sweetness of sugar, and also have the other functionalqualities of sugars. In formulation, inulin forms a smoothcreamy texture, which makes this compound suitable as afat substitute (Georges, 2003).We can also cite the work of F. Georges of the PlantBiotechnology Institute (PBI, National Research Council ofCanada, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan). He was working onthe production of inulin and oligofructosans in separatetransgenic plant experiments to compare the efﬁciencyof their ﬁbre production. Oilseed rape (canola), which is apoor producer of inulin and oligofructosans, was used asmodel system. In particular, the production of two enzymeswas to be evaluated: sucrose-1-fructose-1-transferasewhich adds a fructose moiety to a sucrose molecule, andfructan: fructan fructosyl transferase which continues toelongate the polymer by adding more fructose moieties tothe chain. The study showed that both enzymes could beused in conjunction to produce inulins and oligofructosans(Georges, 2003).Growers of nutraceutical plants need varieties with goodagronomic potential and those that are consistent with thevarieties in terms of germination time, height and maturity.Growers will need to be able to guarantee the quality oftheir natural health-beneﬁcial products. Breeding methodscan therefore be used to achieve uniform quality forclinical testing and for product development, as well as toremove these potentially harmful or otherwise undesirablecompounds that are produced in the plants along with theirtherapeutic ones (Ferrie, 2003).To meet these goals, Alison Ferrie of the PlantBiotechnology Institute (PBI, National Research Council ofCanada, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan) was using the doubledhaploid technology or “haploidy”, which facilitates thedevelopment of true-breeding lines. Immature pollengrains, called microspores, were cultured to produce haploidlines, whose genetic stock was thereafter doubled. True-breeding plants were thus produced in one generation, anddoubled haploid techniques reduced the time required todevelop a new variety by about three to four years. At theNRC-PBI, doubled haploid technology has been developedfor oilseed rape (canola) and wheat. It is being applied toa wide range of nutraceutical and herbal species. Over 80species have been screened for embryogenic response;anise, fennel, dill, caraway, angelica and lovage haveshown good potential (Ferrie, 2003). Haploidy could alsobe combined with mutagenesis to enhance the desirablecomponents or decrease the undesirable characteristics.Mutagenizing single cells (microspores) had deﬁniteadvantages over seed mutagenesis (Ferrie, 2003).The new market for healthier foodstuffs attracts boththe agri-food giants and pharmaceutical groups, so thatthe competition is harsh among them and the frontiersare less marked between both kinds of corporations. Thecompetitive advantage of the food industry in this raceis that it has a good knowledge of consumers’ behaviour,massive marketing strategies while knowing thatnutraceutics should remain tasteful and palatable if thesewere to be patronized by consumers.In France, a success story was that of Danone’s Actimel,launched in 1995 in Belgium in the form of a small bottlecorresponding to an individual dose and commercialized in15 countries. More than 600 million bottles had been soldworldwide in 1999, including about 100 million in France,where 9 per cent of the households of all socio-professionalcategories bought Actimel – dubbed the ‘morning healthgesture’. Others include that of the case of Eridania-Béghin Say in France in 1999, relating to food additiveshaving an impact on cardio-vascular diseases, colon cancer,osteoporosis, diabetes, etc. which sold commercializedpowder sugar enriched with ‘bioﬁbres’, which boostsintestinal microﬂora and helps the body to naturally resistillness.Back in Nestlé, they are also carrying out the relevantresearch-and-development work with the support of its600-scientist strong nutrition centre, located in Lausannewhile in May 1999, in the USA, Australia, and in Switzerland,Unilever with an international nutrition researchcentre at Vlaardingen, Netherlands, commercialized a‘hypocholesterol’ margarine, which could help prevent theaccumulation of ‘bad’ cholesterol. It also aimed to targetmarkets in Europe and Brazil.13In the USA, most agri-food companies (e.g. Campbell,Kellogg’s and Quaker Oats) have developed soups,beverages and cereals, which can help digestion andprevent cardio-vascular diseases and hypertension. TheUS Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has openedthe way to nutraceutics, having labels carrying a healthrecommendation. On 21 October 1999, the FDA grantedto soybeans (25 g of soybean proteins absorbed daily) theclearance to carry the claim ‘may reduce cardiovascularrisks’ on their labels. This request was made by E.I. Dupontde Nemours & Co., Inc., the world’s ﬁrst-biggest producer ofsoybean products.Soya sauce and soybean paste are major foodstuffsacross Asia. Industrial soybeans undergo a solid-statefermentation process using compliant stainless steel tanksinstead of in conventional bamboo trays. They are alsoinoculated withAspergillus oryzaeselected strains thathave been developed in Thailand to produce koji in higheryields and of better quality. This technique, developedby a fermentation consortium associating the NationalCenter for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (BIOTEC,Bangkok) and the Department of Chemical Engineeringof Kasetsart University (Agricultural University, Bangkok),has been successfully applied by the company ChainCo. Ltd., Bangkok, and thereafter adopted by some soya-sauce manufacturers in Thailand. The same companyhas succeeded in selecting the appropriate strain ofLactobacillusto replace the addition of acetic acid in orderto enhance the sour taste of soya sauce. The companyproduces the top quality commercial soya sauce inThailand – the so-called First Formulation (the Thai Foodand Drug Administration categorizes soya sauce into ﬁveformulations which differ in protein content).2.2.1

The case of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acidsLong-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids are a research focusfor nutritionists and food biotechnologists. Their beneﬁcialeffect on the functioning of the cardio-vascular system hasbeen initially mentioned since the 1970s in the medicalliterature. In France, a recent book authored by DavidServan-Schreiber – a psychiatrist advocating a ‘medicine ofemotions’ –Guérir le stress, l’anxiétéet la dépression sansmédicaments ni psychanalyse(Curing stress, anxiety anddepression without medication or psychoanalysis) hasstressed the role of these fatty acids as anti-depressionsubstances. Incidentally, the author of the said book is alsoa shareholder of a company that sells pills containing thesefatty acids (Benkimoun, 2004b).These long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids belong to twomain categories: omega-3 (ﬁrst double bound at carbon 3 onthe chain) and omega-6 (ﬁrst double bound at carbon 6 onthe chain). Among omega-3 fatty acids, there are the alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) with 18 carbon atoms, eicosapentaenoicacid (EPA) with 20 carbon atoms and docosahexaenoicacid (DHA) with 22 carbon atoms. The human body cannotsynthesize the ALA as well as the linoleic acid which isan omega-6 fatty acid. Omega-3 fatty acids are found inrapeseed and soybean oils (linolenic acid), marine animalsand human milk (EPA, DHA) [Benkimoun, 2004b].Food-consumption surveys carried out in France haveshown that the consumption of omega-3 fatty acids wasinsufﬁcient and the ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 was notbalanced (this ratio should be between 5 and 10). Althoughresearch is being carried out on the precise role of thesefatty acids on human health, it is not easy for the public tohave a clear view of established scientiﬁc facts and amidcontroversial statements (Benkimoun, 2004b).Let us look now at what maybe causing confusion amongthe public as regard the issue of omega-3 fatty acids. It mayhave begun with the study that revealed lower morbidityand mortality due to cardio-vascular of Greenland’s Inuitswho consume a lot of fatty ﬁsh. In France, the French Agencyfor Food Sanitary Safety (AFSSA) convened a meeting ofexperts on the effects of omega-3 fatty acids on the cardio-vascular system. They concluded that the supplementationof daily diet with these fatty acids could have a beneﬁcialimpact on the functioning of the cardio-vascular system, asa secondary prevention measure. Morbidity and mortalityreduction was indeed signiﬁcant among the personswho suffered form cardio-vascular or metabolic diseases.However, omega-3 fatty acids did not act on cholesterol;they may act on triglycerides and cell membranes, as well ason blood clotting and heart excitability; they may also have,through prostaglandins (some of these acids are precursorsin the biosynthetic pathways of prostaglandins), a positiveeffect on hypertension (Benkimoun, 2004b). The expertsconvened by the French AFSSA also warned against therole of the consumption of excessive quantities of omega-3fatty acids, as they would increase cell susceptibility to freeradicals. They recommended a maximum daily intake of EPAand DHA of 2g per day (Benkimoun, 2004b).Then there are also the claims on the prohibitive effects ofomega-3 fatty acids on tumors. To this, the AFFSA expertsconcluded that all the studies carried out up to 2004 onfood habits did not substantiate in humans any evidenceindicating that an enrichment of the diet with precursorsof omega-3 fatty acids would protect against cancer.However, research work carried out on rats has shown thata diet enriched with omega-3 fatty acids caused a 60 percent decrease in size of mammary tumours, twelve daysafter radiotherapy, compared with a 31 per cent decrease inanimals fed with a non-enriched diet. Trials are expected tobe carried out on humans (Benkimoun, 2004b).Given the insufﬁciency of evidence, the beneﬁts of takingOmega-3 pills remain inconclusive. In view of this, thegeneral advice is to consume ﬁsh at least twice a week. Thesame goes for rapeseed oil. This is sufﬁcient to meet thedaily needs of omega-3 fatty acids. It is also recommendedto feed poultry with rapeseed meal rather than withsunﬂower meal, because the former is richer in omega-6 fatty acids. Thus, consuming this kind of poultry meatwould provide enough omega-6 fatty acids (Benkimoun,2004b).142.3 Biofortiﬁcation of food cropsBiofortiﬁcation of food crops makes sense as part of anintegrated food-systems approach to reducing malnutrition.It addresses the root causes of micronutrient deﬁciencies,targets the poorest people, and is scientiﬁcally feasible andcost-effective. It is a ﬁrst step in enabling rural householdsto improve family nutrition and health in a sustainable way.HarvestPlus is a coalition of CGIAR Future Harvest Centersor Institutes, partner collaborating institutions (e.g.National Agricultural Research Systems in developingcountries, departments of human nutrition at universitiesin developing and developed countries, non-governmentalorganizations) and supportive donors (The Bill andMelinda Gates Foundation, DANIDA, Swedish InternationalDevelopment Assistance – SIDA, US Agency for InternationalDevelopment – USAID, and the World Bank). TheInternational Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) andIFPRI are coordinating the plant breeding, human nutrition,crop dissemination, policy analysis and impact activitiesto be carried out at international Future Harvest Centers,national agricultural research and extension institutions,and departments of plant science and human nutrition atuniversities in both developing and developed countries.An initiative of the Consultative Group on InternationalAgricultural Research (CGIAR), HarvestPlus is a globalalliance of research institutions and implementing agenciescoming together to breed and disseminate crops withimproved nutritive value (biofortiﬁcation), e.g. with a highercontent of iron, zinc and vitamin A. The biofortiﬁcationapproach is backed by sound science. Research onthis funded by the Danish International DevelopmentAssistance (DANIDA) and coordinated by the InternationalFood Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) led to the followingconclusions:•substantial, useful genetic variation exists in key staplecrops;•breeding programmes can readily manage nutritionalquality traits, which for some crops have proven to behighly suitable and simple to screen for;•desired traits are sufﬁciently stable across a wide range ofgrowing environments; and•traits for high nutrition content can be combined withsuperior agronomic traits and high yields.Initial biofortiﬁcation efforts (as of 2005) will focus onsix staple crops for which prebreeding studies have beencompleted: beans, cassava, sweet potatoes, rice, maizeand wheat. The potential for nutrient enhancement willalso be studied in ten additional crops that are importantcomponents in the diets of those with micronutrientdeﬁciencies: bananas/plantains, barley, cowpeas,groundnuts, lentils, millet, pigeon-peas, potatoes, sorghumand yams.During the ﬁrst four years (1 to 4) of the project, theobjectives are to: determine nutritionally optimal breedingobjectives; screen CGIAR germplasm for high iron, zinc andbeta-carotene amounts; initiate crosses of high-yieldingadapted germplasm for selected crops; document culturaland food-processing practices, and determine their impacton micronutrient content and bioavailability; identifythe genetic markers available to facilitate the transfer oftraits through conventional and novel breeding strategies;carry outin-vitroand animal studies to determine thebioavailability of the enhanced micronutrients in promisinglines; and initiate bio-efﬁcacy studies to determine theeffect on biofortiﬁed crops on the micronutrient status ofhumans.During the following three years (5 to 7), the objectivesare to: continue bio-efﬁcacy studies; initiate farmer-participatory breeding; adapt high-yielding, conventionally-bred, micronutrient-dense lines to select regions; releasenew conventionally-bred biofortiﬁed varieties to farmers;identify gene systems with potential for increasingnutritional value beyond conventional breeding methods;produce transgenic lines at experimental level and screenfor micronutrients, test for compliance with biosafetyregulations; develop and implement a marketing strategyto promote the improved varieties; and begin productionand distribution. During the last three years of the project(8 to 10), production and distribution of the improvedvarieties will be scaled up; the nutritional effectivenessof the programme will be determined; and the factorsaffecting the adoption of biofortiﬁed crops, the healtheffects on individuals and the impact on householdresources will be identiﬁed.The following are the staple crops and notes on theirbiotech status and potential:2.3.1 RiceRice is the dominant cereal crop in many developingcountries and is the staple food for more than half of theworld’s population. In several Asian countries, rice provides50 per cent to 80 per cent of the calorie intake of the poor.In South and South-East Asian countries, more than halfof all women and children are anaemic; increasing ricenutritive value can therefore have signiﬁcant positivehealth impact. Food-consumption studies suggested thatdoubling the iron content in rice could increase the ironintake of the poor by 50 per cent; germplasm screeningindicated that a doubling of iron and zinc content inunmilled rice was feasible. Milling losses vary widely by ricevariety, with losses of iron being higher than losses of zinc,which suggests than more zinc is deposited in the innerparts of the rice endosperm. Under the HarvestPlus project,improved rice germplasm will be provided to nationalpartners in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam, India and thePhilippines. The improved features will be incorporated intowell-adapted and agronomically-preferred germplasm inongoing breeding programmes at the national and regionallevel. A plant-biotechnology approach is the current priorityfor enhancing provitamin-A content of the rice endosperm.The leading varieties will be ﬁeld tested for agronomicperformance and compositional stability in at least fourcountries.152.3.2 WheatThe International

Maize and Wheat Improvement Center(CIMMYT, Mexico) is leading the HarvestPlus researchendeavour on wheat biofortiﬁcation in order to increasepeople’s intake of iron and zinc. Given that spring wheatvarieties developed by CIMMYT and its partners are used in80 per cent of the global spring wheat area, the potentialimpact of iron-enhanced wheat could be dramatic. Theinitial target countries will be Pakistan and India, in thearea around the Indo-Gangetic plains, a region with highpopulation densities and high micronutrient malnutrition.The highest contents of iron and zinc in wheat grainsare found in landraces of wild relatives of wheat such asTriticum dicocconandAegilops tauschii. Because these wildrelatives of wheat cannot be crossed directly with modernwheat, researchers facilitated the cross between a high-micronutrient wild relative,Aegilops tauschii, and a high-micronutrient primitive wheat,Triticum dicoccon,to developa variety of hexaploid wheat that can be crossed directlywith current modern varieties of wheat and have 40 percent to 50 per cent higher contents of iron and zinc in thegrain than modern wheat. The ﬁrst biofortiﬁed lines will bedelivered to the target region by 2005, i.e. broadly-adapted,high-yielding, disease-resistant wheat lines. The ﬁrst high-yielding lines with conﬁrmed iron and zinc contents in thegrain should be available for regional deployment by mid-2007.Researchers will be exploring the introduction of theferritin gene in wheat and will establish the feasibility ofincreasing the concentration of iron and zinc in the grainusing advanced biotechnology approaches in addition toconventional plant breeding. Molecular markers for theiron and zinc genes that control concentration in the grainwere being identiﬁed in order to facilitate their transfer.Scientists will also carry out studies on bioavailability todetermine the extent to which iron and zinc status inanimal and human subjects is improved when biofortiﬁedvarieties are consumed on a daily basis over several months.2.3.3 MaizeMaize is the preferred staple food of more than 1.2 billionconsumers in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.Over 50 million people in these regions were vitaminA-deﬁcient in 2004. The International Maize and WheatImprovement Center (CIMMYT) and the InternationalInstitute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria) areidentifying micronutrient-rich maize varieties and will carryout adaptive breeding for local conditions in partnershipwith National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) inAfrica and Latin America. The project under HarvestPlusis initially focusing on maize varieties having increasedcontents of provitamin A because a useful range of geneticvariation has already been identiﬁed for this trait. The ﬁrsttarget countries are Brazil, Guatemala, Ethiopia, Ghana andZambia.To support the breeding programme, research is beingconducted in Brazil, the USA and Europe to develop simple,inexpensive and rapid screening protocols for provitaminA, so as to reduce the cost of assays from $70-100 to $5-10per sample. Research in Brazil and the USA is also focusedon ﬁnding genetic markers to facilitate marker-assistedselection for provitamin A concentration. In collaborationwith the University of Wageningen, a human efﬁcacytrial was planned with provitamin A-rich maize in Nigeriafor 2005 in order to study provitamin A retention or lossfor different storage, processing and common cookingmethods.To facilitate extension and dissemination of biofortiﬁedmaize varieties, country teams will be formed in the targetcountries in order to conduct adaptive breeding research,farmer-participatory variety evaluations, nutritionaladvocacy and promotional activities.2.3.4 BeansCommon beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) are the world’s mostimportant food legume, far more so than chickpeas, fababeans, lentils and cowpeas. For more than 300 millionpeople, an inexpensive bowl of beans is the main mealof their daily diet. The focus of HarvestPlus researchis on increasing the concentration of iron and zinc inagronomically superior varieties.Over 2,000 accessions from the International Center forTropical Agriculture (CIAT, Cali, Colombia) gene-bank andseveral hundred collections of African landraces have beenscreened for their nutrient contents. While the averageiron concentration in these varieties is about 55 mg perkg, researchers have found varieties the content of whichexceeds 100 mg per kg. The eventual goals are to obtainfavourable combinations for productivity and nutritionaltraits, double the iron concentration and increase zincconcentration by about 40 per cent. The ﬁrst bred lines with70 per cent higher iron will likely emerge in 2006, whilelines with double concentration of iron are anticipated in2008.The proportion of iron and zinc that can be absorbedfrom legumes such as common beans is typically low, dueto anti-nutrients, speciﬁcally phytates and polyphenols,which normally bind to the iron and zinc, making themunavailable to the organism. Research indicated that itmight be possible to reduce polyphenol concentrationsgenetically, thereby improving iron bioavailability. Incontrast, vitamin C is an iron-absorption enhancer becauseit binds to iron and prevents it from becoming attached tothe iron-absorption inhibitors. Beans are often consumedwith vegetables, including bean leaves with the potential ofbean leaves as a source of vitamin C still to be explored.2.3.5 CassavaCassava, also known as manioc or tapioca, is a perennialcrop native of tropical America that is also widely consumedin sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia. With its productivityon marginal soils, ability to withstand disease, droughtand pests, ﬂexible harvest dates, cassava is a remarkablyadapted crop consumed by people in areas where drought,poverty and malnutrition are often prevalent. Cassava istypically white in colour and, depending on the amounts ofcyanogenic compounds, can be sweet or bitter.16The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)will coordinate HarvestPlus’ overall activities on cassavabiofortiﬁcation and be primarily responsible for researchin Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. The IITA will beresponsible for cassava biofortiﬁcation in Africa.In collaboration with the University of Campinas, São PauloState, Brazil, the total content of provitamin A in cassavavarieties (roots) will be determined spectrophotometrically.Provitamin-A retention studies will also be carried out ondifferent preparation and cooking methods used in cassava-consuming countries. A method for storing cassava roots forseveral weeks or a few months is needed for programmesquantifying hundreds of samples per year. Initial datasuggest that the anti-oxidant property of a few yellowpigments in cassava roots may delay physical deteriorationof the roots. The longer shelf life of yellow cassava rootsmay not only appeal to farmers and consumers, but mayalso increase the demand for biofortiﬁed varieties.Nutritionally improved germplasm coupled with superioragronomic performance can be developed as a medium-term approach with products reaching the farmers assoon as 2009. The aim is to identify and select, from thevarieties having both high provitamin-A contents and goodagronomic performance, those with the highest iron and/orzinc content.2.3.6 Sweet potatoSweet potato is an important part of the diet in East andCentral Africa where vitamin-A deﬁciency is widespread.At present, African predominant sweet potato cultivarsare white or yellow-ﬂeshed varieties that contain smallamounts of provitamin A. In contrast, the orange-ﬂeshedvarieties are believed to be one of the least expensive, rich,year-round sources of provitamin A. Boiled orange-ﬂeshedsweet potato, such as the Resisto variety developed in SouthAfrica, contains between 1,170 and 1,620 Retinol ActivityEquivalents (RAE) per 100 g and is estimated to providebetween 25 per cent and 35 per cent of the recommendeddaily allowance for a preschool child. Experts at theInternational Potato Center (CIP, Lima, Peru), who developeda biofortiﬁed orange-ﬂeshed sweet potato, estimated thatwhen fully disseminated, this sweet potato could reducevitamin-A deﬁciency in as many as 50 million children.To encourage a switch from non-orange to orange-ﬂeshedvarieties, the texture of the latter must be changed becausethey tend to have a high-moisture content and adults prefervarieties with a low water content, i.e. a high dry biomass.Plant breeding is ongoing to increase the dry biomass of theprovitamin A-rich orange varieties, to improve organolepticcharacteristics and at the same time improve theirresistance to viruses and drought.About 40 varieties of sweet potato with high dry biomassand provitamin-A content have been introduced to sub-Saharan Africa. Of these, 10 to 15 were being tested widelyin different agro-ecological areas in some countries. Someoriginal varieties, mainly local landraces, have been wellaccepted by farmers and were being distributed on a smallscale.HarvestPlus’ biofortiﬁcation activities in sweet potato willbe initially focused on Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique,Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. The variationin provitamin-A content of newly harvested roots can be asmuch as 45 per cent. Much of the provitamin A appears tobe retained during storage, food preparation and cooking. Inthe South African Resisto variety, the provitamin-A activityof the boiled roots was between 70 per cent and 80 per centof that of freshly harvested roots. Additional studies wereto be carried out in 2004 to determine the provitamin-Alosses during food processing and cooking based on theusual practices found in East and Central Africa. A humanbioefﬁcacy study using an organoleptically acceptablepromising variety was planned for 2005, once the foodprocessing studies were completed.The $100-million ten-year HarvestPlus programme will beﬁnanced during the ﬁrst four years mainly by the WorldBank, the USAID and DANIDA. The Bill and Melinda GatesFoundation would contribute $25 million toward the totalcost of the programme. In addition, the Canadian Agencyfor International Development (CIDA) will allocate funds forthe Latin American part of the programme.2.4Regulatory issues and communicationpoliciesInnovation in healthy foodstuffs is also fraught with costlyfailures. For instance, Procter & Gamble spent 30 daysdeveloping Olestra, a fat which the digestive system cannotabsorb. But the product has been dogged by claims that itinhibits the absorption of vitamins and nutrients that mayhelp prevent cancer; by a hostile lobby group, the Centre forScience in the Public Interest; and by regulatory problems.In 1996, after eight years of tests, the US Food and DrugAdministration (FDA) allowed it to be used as an ingredient,but products made with it had to carry the warning thatit might cause gastro-intestinal distress. In the summerof 2003, the FDA allowed the warning to be taken offadvertisements (The Economist, 2003).Moves toward healthier products and functional foodstuffsalso fuel the professional lives of lawyers, regulators andstock-market analysts. Many companies have recentlyappointed advisory boards composed of top nutritionists.The FDA itself is acquiescing to companies’ proposals toinclude in their products’ health beneﬁts in their labels.The FDA has, in fact, liberalized the rules on making healthclaims, adopting a four-tier system enabling consumersto decide based on how solid the science is behind anyparticular product’s health claim. Calcium ability to protectagainst osteoporosis, for instance, is reckoned very solidwhile omega-3 fatty acids to prevent heart diseases areconsidered good, but second level. By early 2003, the FDAannounced that from 2006 consumers must be informedof the amounts of trans-fats in foods notwithstanding thealready wide publicity on the adverse effects of transfats(The Economist, 2003).Health authorities in Europe are also striving to regulatethis kind of research and to establish marketing standards.All the difﬁculties relate to the need to demonstratethe impact of these foodstuffs on disease prevention in17humans. Does this mean we have to wait for sixty years ofclinical studies in order to obtain such evidence? Under theprogramme FUFOSE, Functional Food Science in Europe,priority is given to the determination of ‘markers’ (or tools)which will scientiﬁcally enable the recognition of long-termbeneﬁts of functional foodstuffs. Those nutraceutics whichwill show a beneﬁcial impact will receive an authorizationfor marketing, rather similar to that given to medicines(European Commission, 2002).Genetic engineering is useful for producing crops or foodingredients deprived of some undesirable elements orenriched with healthy substances, and therefore qualiﬁedas nutraceutics. To be attractive to the consumers, thesefoodstuffs should not be too expensive. Ageing populationsare a particular target for nutraceutics, which can play a keyrole in the nutrition of old people suffering from under- andmalnutrition. Between 1998 and 2002, it was estimatedthat the annual turnover of modiﬁed milks increased by 10per cent in Europe and 36 per cent in the USA among peopleof more than 65 years.Agri-food companies are also designing communicationpolicies not just for consumers but also for physicians,pediatricians and nutritionists, like the pharmaceuticalgroups, in order to highlight the beneﬁts of their products.These policies have to take into account the culturaldifferences with regard to food and nutrition amongthe countries. They should also state the preventive roleof nutraceutics as well as their therapeutic effects. Forexample, information available to consumers regardingthe LC1 yoghurt, which states that it contains bacteriathat foster a balanced intestinal ﬂora, has, according toNestlé, a more scientiﬁc slant in Germany, where onecan talk of micro-organisms, while this approach wouldnot be culturally accepted in France. This hints of culturalconsiderations in information about health productsbecause despite the worldwide movement of people andinternational tourism, in countries of Anglo-Saxon culturefood is generally considered as functional, i.e. one eatsbecause he has to, while in the countries of Latin culturefood must also give pleasure and should be surroundedwith conviviality. Henceforth the need for communicationpolicies to take account of this kind of nuances and thatshould be adapted to their targets.18Probiotics are microbial food ingredients that beneﬁciallyinﬂuence human health while prebiotics are non-digestiblecarbohydrates such as fructo- and galacto-oligosaccharides.Probiotics have been used historically in different culturesin the form of fermented dairy foods, vegetables andcereals. Health effects of probiotics have been reported inthe oral cavity, stomach, small and large intestine and thevagina. Although they consist mainly of lactic acid bacteria,biﬁdobacteria and yeasts have also been successfully used.Prebiotics are organic food components that exert health-promoting effects by improving the characteristics ofintestinal ﬂora. Established effects of prebiotics are dietaryﬁbre-like effects such as anti-constipation, faecal bulkingand pH reduction. The potential effects of prebiotics aresimilar to those of probiotics, since a major mechanism forprebiotics lies in the support of probiotics. The synergisticcombination of both probiotics and prebiotics is calledsymbiotics.At the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville,Maryland, Karen Nelson and her colleagues at StanfordUniversity are working to sequence the DNA of everybacterium found in the human gut. Previous estimates hadput the number of bacterial species in the gut at about 500.Preliminary results from the guts of ﬁve healthy individualshave so far revealed about 1,300 species per person. Asintestinal diseases could lead to subtle, long-term changesin gut bacteria, and changes in bacteria populations seemedto precede other diseases such as colon cancer, the TIGRteam planned to compare healthy guts with those of peoplewith Crohn’s disease – an inﬂammation of the gut withno well-understood cause. On the other hand, sequencingthe DNA of gut bacteria may lead to our being able tomanipulate our intestinal ﬂora in more sophisticated ways.The TIGR researchers also planned to study the microﬂora ofother parts of the human body, such as the mouth, skin andgenitals, that each harbours its own distinctive communitymicrobes (Whitﬁeld, 2004).Under the European Commission, the cluster Proeuhealthbrought together 64 research partners from 16 countriesworking in the ﬁelds of food, gastro-intestinal-tractfunctionality and human health. The cluster aimed toprovide:•a clearer understanding of the relationship between food,intestinal bacteria, and human health and disease;•new molecular research tools for studying thecomposition and activity of the intestinal microbiota;•new therapeutic and prophylactic treatments forintestinal infections, chronic intestinal diseases and forhealthy ageing;•a molecular understanding of immune modulation byprobiotic bacteria and examination of probiotics asvaccine-delivery vehicles;•process formulation technologies for enhanced probioticstability and functionality; and•commercial opportunities for the food andpharmaceutical industries.Probiotic lactobacilli are known to affectimmunomodulation. The increased understanding ofthe molecular factors affecting immunomodulation andimmunogenicity will allow the selection of probioticstrains, with enhanced protective or therapeutic effects.European researchers have targeted two types of intestinaldiseases: inﬂammations such as inﬂammatory boweldisease and infections such as those caused by rotavirusesandHelicobacter pylori(associated with ulcers) [EuropeanCommission, 2002].Two specially-selected probiotics will be tested in long-term human clinical trials for their alleviating effectson inﬂammatory diseases, such as Crohn’s disease andulcerative colitis – immune-mediated diseases that result inchronic relapsing inﬂammation of the gut.Delivering the health beneﬁts of probiotics and prebioticsto consumers depends essentially on their successfulprocessing. Viability, stability and functionality of theseingredients must be maintained during processing,formulation and storage. The effects of processingprobiotics are being explored by the European researchersand used to develop optimal process and formulationtechnologies. New processing techniques will be applied tothe development of functionally enhanced prebiotics andsymbiotic combinations(European Commission, 2002).3 Probiotics and Prebiotics19Before the biotech era, research on food and nutrition dealtwith establishing the importance of carbohydrates, fats andproteins in our diet, and with identifying trace elementsand vitamins that are essential for the enzymes mediatingour metabolism, respectively (Juurlink, 2003). The biotechera we are now just entering, concerns the understandingof the effects on speciﬁc gene expression of certaincompounds we eat.A good example is that of the regulation of a diversegroup of genes whose proteins, generally enzymes, tend toeither directly or indirectly scavenge strong oxidants or todecrease the probability of production of strong oxidants;these proteins are referred to as phase-2 proteins and, sincemost of them are enzymes, they are commonly referred toas phase-2 enzymes (Juurlink, 2003).Strong oxidants can damage DNA thereby resulting inmutations that may lead to cancer; they scavenge theendothelial-derived vascular relaxation factor nitric oxidethereby promoting hypertension; and they also activatekinase pathways that lead to inﬂammation. The phase-2 terminology comes from the terminology describingenzymes that metabolize xenobiotics: phase-1 enzymesbeing the mono-oxygenases, mostly cytochrome P450s,that convert the generally hydrophobic xenobiotics tostrong electrophiles, while the phase-2 enzymes formwater-soluble adducts by the addition of glutathiyl,glucuronosyl or sulphate groups. Since the phase-2 enzymegenes all have anti-oxidant response elements (AREs)in their promoter regions, any gene with an ARE in thepromoter region is referred to as phase-2 protein (enzyme)(Juurlink, 2003).Phase-2 enzymes include the classical ones such asNAD(P)H: quinone oxireductase 1, glutathione S-transferasesA, M and P families, UDP-glucuronosyl transferases, as wellas the more recently deﬁned phase-2 proteins: ferritin Hand L chains; cystine/glutamate antiporter, peroxiredoxinI, heme oxygenase 1; L-gamma-glutamyl-L-cysteine ligase,metallothioneins, etc. All these proteins directly or indirectlyinhibit strong oxidant formation, e.g. ferritin throughsequestering iron, or promote strong oxidant scavenging,e.g. NAD(P)H: quinone oxireductase. Phase-2 protein genesare coordinately upregulated through activation of anARE in their promoter regions. Phase-2 protein inducerscan be found in our diet: kaempferol, a ﬂavonoid presentin high amounts in kale; a ﬂavonoid fraction found inblueberries/cranberries; enterolactone, a metabolite ofthe principle lignan secoisolariciresinol diglucoside foundin the ﬂax seeds; ellagic acid found in strawberries andraspberries/blackberries; the ﬂavolignan silibinin obtainedfrom milk thistle (Silybum marianum) fruit; sulforaphane,the isothiocyanate metabolite of the glucosinolateglucoraphanin (Juurlink, 2003).There is much evidence that dietary intake of such phase-2protein inducers can increase phase-2 gene expression ina number of tissues and that such induction can decreasethe incidence of chemically induced tumours. At the PlantBiotechnology Institute (PBI, National Research Council ofCanada, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan), Juurlink and colleaguesare working on the phase-2 protein-inducing isothiocyanatederivatives of certain glucosinolates, 4-methylsulﬁnylbutylglucosinolate, commonly known as glucoraphanin. TheCanadian researchers have shown that dietary intakeof glucosinolates that give rise to phase-2 protein-inducing isothiocyanates can improve hypertension in thespontaneously hypertensive stroke-prone rats (SHRsp); inaddition, oxidative stress and inﬂammatory changes invarious tissues in the ageing SHRsp was down-regulated(Juurlink, 2003).The NRC-PBI’s researchers also examined the effects ofadministration of the ﬂavonoid quercetin in a neurotraumamodel. They found that quercetin administration afterspinal cord injury promotes retention of function, correlatedwith decreased inﬂammation. Not only is quercetin avery selective kinase inhibitor, but it is also known to be aphase-2 protein inducer (although more than an order ofmagnitude higher concentration of quercetin is requiredfor this activity than is the case for sulforaphane) (Juurlink,2003).In collaboration with Shawn Ritchie and Dayan Goodenowe,Juurlink has begun examination of the effect of broccolisprouts containing glucosinolates that are converted intophase-2 protein gene-inducing isothiocyanates on themetabolic proﬁle and they have seen pronounced effects inliver and other organs (Juurlink, 2003).In summary, we are entering an era in nutrition wherewe are beginning to understand how phytochemicalsinﬂuence metabolism and gene expression. Since manyphytochemicals can have multiple actions such asactivating signal transduction pathways that directlyor indirectly alter gene expression or inﬂuence proteinfunction that result in adverse metabolic reactions,one must use multiple approaches to understand howphytochemicals either individually or in combination affectus. Henceforth, a combined metabolomic/proteomic/genomic approach is required (Juurlink, 2003).4

Nutri-geno-proteo-metabolo-mics era ofnutritional studies20A breakthrough in the food industry would be to offerhealthier versions of popular foodstuffs without affectingthe taste. If it succeeds to do so, grapefruit juice could besweet without added sugar and potato chips ﬂavourful withhalf the current content of salt. This kind of research couldhave applications in medicine manufacture. In April 2003,Linguagen Corp., a biotechnology company in Cranbury,New Jersey, conducting taste research, was granted a patentfor the ﬁrst molecule that will block bitter tastes in food,beverages and pharmaceuticals. The compound, adenosine5’-monophosphate or AMP, occurs naturally (in humanbreast milk, among other sources) and, when added tocertain foodstuffs, including coffee and canned or bottledcitrus juice, the company states, it blocks some of the acidictastes from being felt by the tongue (Day, 2003).The ﬁnding of a bitter suppressor attracts all foodcompanies, e.g. Coca-Cola Co., Kraft Foods and Solae, asoya-foods ﬁrm owned by E.I. Dupont de Nemours and Co.,Inc., and Bunge have each expressed interest in ﬂavour andtaste biotechnology. Kraft Foods and Solae are Linguagenclients while Coca-Cola Co. has signed a research deal withSenomyx, another biotechnology company (Day, 2003).Some research has focused on ﬁnding compounds thatwould trick the receptors on the tongue by accentuatingor blocking certain elements in the food, allowing peopleto taste a cup of coffee without adding cream or sugar,or the sensation of full fat in low-fat products. Processedfoods such as canned soups, sauces and snacks like potatochips contain high amounts of salt to mask the bitter tastesthat result from the very hot cooking process. Soft drinksare sweetened to tone down the bitter taste of caffeine.Food and beverage companies are, on the other hand, veryconcerned, as a group, about health and nutrition becauseof all the reports on epidemic obesity, epidemic diabetes,cardio-vascular diseases and hypertension. Hence thesearch for compounds that keep food tasty, minus salt,sugar and fat(Day, 2003).So far scientists at Linguagen Corp. have discovered about20 compounds that blocked bitter tastes and have beengranted patents to use four of the compounds as bitterblockers. Because humans have more than 30 separatebitter taste receptors, ﬁnding a universal bitter blocker isnearly impossible. Linguagen Corp. is also trying to discoverand market a natural sweetener to replace artiﬁcial oneslike aspartame or saccharine, which often leave a bitterafter-taste. The company planned to license bitter blockersto food, beverage and medicine manufacturers in the USAby early 2004 (Day, 2003).Senomyx, based in La Jolla, California, is also developingbitter blockers, as well as molecules that block unpleasantsmells and others that increase the salty taste in lowsodium snacks while decreasing the product salt content.The research was in the early stages by mid-2003. TheCoca-Cola Co. – the world’s ﬁrst-biggest soft-drink company,commercializing 400 beverage brands in 200 countries,with an annual turnover of $21.044 billion and a net proﬁtof $4.347 billion in 2003 – is one of the company’s clients.PepsiCo, Inc., is also interested in taste biotechnology and inanything that can impact food or beverages on a large scale.Since AMP is not bioengineered and regarded as safe,it will be accepted by people and not shunned byconsumers like previous additives which were supposedto revolutionize low-fat foodstuffs but later performedfar below expectations. Much of current taste researchis the result of radical rethinking of the mechanisms ofperception of tastes by humans that has taken place since1993. Researchers have shown that the human brain hadthe ability to recognize a variety of ﬂavours including bitter,sour, savory and sweet all over the tongue rather than inspeciﬁc areas of the tongue, as it was thought before. Thetongue papillae contain the taste buds; when food mixeswith saliva, molecules dissolve on the papillae and, throughthe taste buds, send a signal to the brain, which interpretsthe ﬂavour of what is being eaten. When a bitter blockerhits the tongue, it prevents the bitter taste receptors frombeing activated. The brain is thus unable to recognize thebitter ﬂavour, while the latter is still embedded in the foodor beverage(Day, 2003).5

Modiﬁcation of food tastes andhealthier food production216.1Correlation of genetic markers withmeat qualityIn 2002, the Maryland (Savage)-based biotechnologycompany, MetaMorphix, acquired the livestock genotypingbusiness of Celera Genomics, a company founded in 1998to sequence the human genome; it then joined up withCargill, Inc., to commercialize a genetic test that will helpto reveal, prior to slaughter, a cow’s propensity to producedesirable meat. That task is being carried out by analyzingthousands of so-called single-nucleotide polymorphisms(SNPs) in the bovine genome. A SNP is a place where thegenomes of individual animals vary by a single nucleotide.SNPs are therefore convenient marker versions of particulargenes, and different versions of genes result in differencesbetween animals (The Economist, 2004b).MetaMorphix and Cargill, Inc, tried to ﬁnd out which SNPswere associated with variations in meat quality, such asﬂesh colour, amount of marbling, wetness and tenderness,so that these could be identiﬁed before slaughtering ananimal, and suitable animals will thus be reserved forbreeding. In 2002-2003, Cargill, Inc., studied 4,000 cattle,trying to correlate MetaMorphix’s genetic markers withmeat quality – and with other important traits, such asgrowth rate. Almost 100 useful SNPs have been identiﬁedfrom this study. As a result, a prototype testing kit was to beused by the ﬁrm as of August 2004. The ﬁrst ‘designer meat’produced this way was expected to be marketed in 2005(The Economist, 2004b).6.2Genetic tagging of aquacultural speciesSpecies-speciﬁc DNA markers can be used to identify animalspecies such as commercial molluscs and crustaceans,which represent a high proportion of aquacultural species.For instance, in Thailand, at the National Center forGenetic Engineering and Biotechnology (BIOTEC) MarineBiotechnology Unit, species-speciﬁc markers based on 16Sribosomal DNA (rDNA) polymorphism have been developedfor penaeid shrimps, tropical abalone and oysters.The black tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) is the mostcommercially important cultured species in Thailand.Because of outbreaks of diseases, the white shrimp (P.vannamei) has been introduced into Thailand and culturedcommercially. On the other hand, external characteristics ofP. monodonandP. semisulcatusare similar, but the growthrate of the latter is approximately three times slower thanthat of the former. In addition,P.

merguiensislarvae, whichcould not yet be successfully cultured, were sold as thoseofP.vannamei.Species-speciﬁc markers were thereforedeveloped for identifying the afore-mentioned species andP. japonicusas well. These markers can be applied to ensurequality control by properly labeling traded shrimp larvae.Three species of tropical abalone are found in Thailand’swaters:Haliotis

asinina,H. ovinaandH. varia. However,H. asininais the most productive one, as it provides thehighest ratio (85 per cent) between meat weight and totalweight.H. asininaspeciﬁc markers based on 16S rDNApolymorphism have been developed in order to preventsupplying the wrong abalone larvae for the industry aswell as to foster quality control of abalone products fromThailand.Oyster farming has shown rapid growth in Thailand overthe last few years. Taxonomic difﬁculties relating to Thaioysters have had a limiting effect on the culture efﬁciencyand development of their closed life cycle. Moleculargenetic markers have therefore been developed to identifythe three commercially cultured oysters,Crassostreabelcheri,C. iredaleiandSaccostrea cucullata.6.3DNA ﬁngerprinting of grapevinevarietiesSince 1990, US and French researchers have been trying toestablish the phylogenetic tree of the varieties of grapevinegrown throughout the world, using the ﬁngerprintingtechnique. The research consists of analyzing the structureof certain regions of the genome of some grapevinevarieties and comparing it with that of other varieties, soas to establish possible phylogenetic relations. For thisanalysis, the DNA is extracted from young ground leaves,but also from fruits and branches. The results of this ﬁrstresearch have been published in 1999 in theSciencejournal(Nau, 1999a).There are about 6,000 grapevine varieties cultivatedworldwide. In order to establish the origin of a variety,specialists used to rely on phenotypic traits, such asthe morphology of leaves, berries and grapes. In thisway, varieties could be grouped in a few families. DNAﬁngerprinting enables the researchers to go further. Itappears that the current grapevine varieties are the remoteoffspring of the grapevines grown during the Antiquityaround the Mediterranean, or during the European MiddleAges. The current varieties are the result of lengthybreeding activities, identiﬁcation and comparison work, andstabilization of the selected strains or lines (Nau, 1999a).The team led by C. Meredith and J. Bowers of theDepartment of Viticulture and Oenology of the Universityof California, Davis, has conﬁrmed that the cabernetsauvignon variety – which is dominant in the Medoc regionof France and is at the origin of most red grapevine varietiesin the New World – was in fact the offspring of the cabernetfranc and sauvignon, two varieties deeply entrenchedin the middle valley of the Loire river. The cooperationbetween the Californian team and the French specialistsof the National Higher School of Agronomy, Montpellier,associated with the Genetic Research and Breeding Unit ofthe National Agricultural Research Institute (INRA), has ledto undisputable results concerning the origins of variousgrapevine varieties: the chardonnay (the most famousand expressive variety in Burgundy), aligote (also fromBurgundy), gamay (red variety) and melon of Burgundy(which has colonized the area of muscadet) are all cousinsand almost siblings. Such a conclusion, derived from theanalysis of DNA ﬁngerprinting, was not a surprise foroenologists and tasters because the wines made fromthese four varieties share common structures and aromas.This kinship is particularly expressed in the ageing wines.6

Correlation ofgenetic markers withbeverage and food quality22Similarly, aged wines of the chenin variety resemble theHungarian tokay (Nau, 1999a).But more surprising than the discovery of that kinshipamong the four grapevine varieties, was the identity of oneof the progenitors of the initial couple that gave rise tothese varieties. Indeed, several historical elements were infavour of the creation of lines through the cross pollinationbetween the pinot noir and the white gouais; these crosseshave given birth – as proven by the ﬁngerprinting analysis– to the three white and red varieties grown for a long timein various French provinces, and for some decades, in manyregions of the globe. The surprising aspect of this discoverywas that the white gouais is almost unknown, althoughthe vine specialists in Montpellier continue to grow it andto make wine form it for their own pleasure. However,this variety has played a key role in the origin of Frenchviticulture, according to R. Dion in hisHistoire de la vigneet du vin en France des origines au XIXe siècle(History ofvine and wine in France from its origins to the 19thcentury).A document dated from the 12thcentury mentioned thisvariety as a lower-grade one; in 1338, the white gouaiswas found in Metz under the name of goez; at that time,instructions were given to eliminate this variety from allthe Metz territory and to privilege only the white and blackfromental, considered as higher-grade varieties. The gouaiswas found in Paris during the 14thcentury and, owing tothe expansion of the workers’ population, it progressivelyreplaced the pinot noir of Burgundy, which was a goodvariety of Parisian vineyards. The extension of the gouaiswas due to the wish of the winemakers to produce acheaper wine. However, the phenomenon was limited toParis and its suburbs; in the vineyards located away fromthe capital, the gouais was rejected, more noble grapevinevarieties were used and contributed to the reputation ofFrench viticulture (Nau, 1999a).The white gouais was also formerly grown in the Jura andFranche-Comté. For the US and French researchers, thisvariety which has played a key role in the history of vineand wine, is the same as the heunisch variety of CentralEurope, introduced in Gaul by a Roman emperor originatingfrom Dalmatia. In Montpellier, the French researchersparticipating in the joint study with the US scientists fromthe University of California, Davis, have tried to reproducethe breeding between the pinot noir and white gouais inorder to seek conﬁrmation of the genetic research. Otherattempts were expected to widen even more the rangeof cultivated grapevine varieties, for both their fruits andwines derived from them. But this approach was hinderedby a drastic regulation, which practically prohibits anyventure of this kind, while non-French winemakers andvinegrowers could do it (Nau, 1999a).In Apulia, in the heel of the Italian boot, drawing on grapesgrown by up to 1,600 small farmers in the area, a Californiawine consultant associated with another Italian wineconsultant from Friuli (northeastern corner of the country)are producing and marketing wines that have scored a greatsuccess worldwide, with 2004 projected sales 15 times asbig as those in 1998, the winery’s ﬁrst year. The wines arecalled A-Mano – handmade – and by far the best knownis a robust red made from a once-obscure grape namedprimitivo (Apple, 2004).DNA testing by Carole Meredith at the University ofCalifornia, Davis, established that primitivo is a descendantof a grape called crljenak kastelanski, widely known in the18thand 19thcenturies on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia (acrljenak cross with dobrinic, plavac, mali, is being grownon that area today). California’s zinfandel, she showed, isgenetically the same as primitivo, though how it crossedthe ocean remains a subject of dispute (Apple, 2004).Apulian primitivo and zin are not twins, of course; climate,soil and viniﬁcation all help to shape a wine’s look, aromaand ﬂavour, along with the grape variety. But the two shareseveral characteristics: both are fruit-rich, chewy, sometimeslush wines, a deep violet-red in colour, often too high inalcoholic content for comfort, but much more subtle ifcarefully handled (Apple, 2004).For years, primitivo was used to add unacknowledged heftto chianti, barbaresco and even red burgundy. Nowadays,primitivo can stand on its own feet. In addition to A-Manoprimitivo, other high-quality primitivos are grouped in anorganization called the Academia dei Racemi, not a truecooperative but an association in which each membermakes his own wine and joins the others for marketingsupport and technical advice. Based in Manduria, betweenthe old cities of Taranto and Lecce, the group includes value-for-money labels like Masseria Pepe, Pervini and Felline(Apple, 2004).237 Food safetyIt is an established fact that, despite current misgivingsabout food safety and unhealthy foodstuffs, what weeat and drink is nowadays subjected to more safety andquality controls than ever, and the effectiveness of thesetests is demonstrated by the choices we regularly make.In Spain, for instance, according to the 2003 ConsumerBarometer released by the Eroski Group Foundation, thepublic has a degree of conﬁdence in its food of 7.29 pointsout of 10. Furthermore,

a survey by the Federation of Foodand Drink Industries (FIAB) showed that 81.3 per cent ofSpaniards interviewed considered the foodstuffs theybought as safe (Sánchez Bardón, 2004).However, according to a recent survey carried out by theSpanish Society for Basic and Applied Nutrition (AESA),32 per cent of Spaniards had unsuitable daily eatinghabits and 64 per cent needed to improve their diet.By late 2002, the Spanish Agency for Food Safety hadbeen created and its main task was to coordinate theimplantation of effective control systems, with alertmechanisms to detect possible failures in the food-safetychain and manage them without repercussions on publichealth. The AESA is also acting as a watchtower foremerging risks and is responsible in Spain for handlingalerts originated elsewhere. During the agency’s ﬁrstyear of existence, 633 food bulletins have been issued,126 of which were alerts involving such administrativedecisions as the withdrawal of certain batches of food.The AESA’s president stated that ‘we have to make surethat the consumer’s perception of risk corresponds to therisk there actually is. Fear has no bounds, but informationcombats it on every front’ (Sánchez Bardón, 2004).There were over 27,907 food industries registered inSpain, and the number of authorized abattoirs reached800 in 2004. The food and drink industry turned overmore than€600 billion a year, and the agriculturaland food sector was the third-biggest employer inthe European Union in 2003. Protective controls haveto match up to this (Sánchez Bardón, 2004). See alsoSchmidt and Rodrick (2003).248.1Deﬁnition and trendsThe phrase “organic or biological agriculture” designatesan agricultural mode of production that does not rely onthe use of chemicals, e.g. fertilizers and chemical pesticides.It also excludes any genetically modiﬁed organism, and islabour intensive. It does not mean that the products arenecessarily of a higher quality than those derived fromconventional agriculture.How much acreage is dedicated to this version of farming?It depends on the deﬁnition, but according to an extensivesurvey by the Germany-based Ecology and AgricultureFoundation, in 2003 Australia led with 7.6 million hectares,followed by Argentina (3 million ha) and Italy (1 million ha).When expressed as a percentage of total arable land, theseﬁgures are far from stunning. The highest proportions arefound in Europe where organic agriculture methods are welldeﬁned and products registered. Thus Austria, the leadingEuropean country in biological agriculture and products,devotes 11.3 per cent of its total arable land to this kind ofagriculture. In France, the proportion is only 1.4 per centand 11,000 farmers are considered organic producers. It isEurope’s ﬁrst-biggest agricultural country occupying 13th

place with regard to biological agriculture (Amalou andDupont, 2004).The methods of biological agriculture have been appliedin France since the 1950s, but it was only at the end ofthe 1970s that small groups of farmers began to organizethemselves, e.g. to create the National Federation ofBiological Agriculture (FNAB). In October 1979, the ﬁrstadviser in biological agriculture had been ofﬁcially hiredby an agriculture chamber, that of the Yonne Department,but the ﬁrst farmers practising this type of agriculture werenot taken seriously by their neighbours, or the institutions(Lorelle, 2000c).During the summer of 1996, the ‘mad-cow’ disease led tothe harsh criticism of industrialized agriculture. The Frenchminister of agriculture highlighted the importance of highquality food and ordered a report on biological agriculture.At the end of 1997, the French government approved amulti-annual plan in favour of this type of agriculture.The demand for its products was strong: in 1999, it grewby about 30 per cent, especially owing to the demand bythe supermarkets, which showed a keen interest in theproducts. Despite government assistance provided since1997 that aimed at facilitating the reconversion of farms,national production could not meet the market demand.In 1999, 8,140 farms were practising biological agricultureover 316,000 hectares, i.e. a threefold larger area than ﬁveyears earlier, and this kind of cultivation concerned only 1per cent of the whole useful acreage. To meet the demand,imports are growing, and it is forecast that in 2005, 1 millionhectares should be devoted to biological agriculture in orderto meet the demand. Speciﬁc training is being provided andﬁnancial assistance is given to those farmers who decideto carry out a reconversion to biological agriculture (Lorelle,2000c)In the United Kingdom, demand for organic food is growingat over 40 per cent a year. This demand amounted to nearly$1.6 billion in 1999, with a third of the population buyingorganic food (Bate, 2000). In France in 2002, 65 per cent ofFrench people had consumed a ‘bio’ product during the last12 months, compared with 50 per cent in 2001 and 40 percent in 2000 (Dupont, 2002).In 2003, however, the French market of organic foodstuffsand products, labelled as “bio”, after growing at a 20 percent annual rate, showed signs of slowing down. Althoughthose responsible for producing and transforming organicproducts tended to underestimate this stagnation(particularly in the aftermath of the food crises that struckEurope), the growth rate of the ‘bio’ products market wasestimated at 6 per cent to 10 per cent in 2003. According tothe institute TNS Media Intelligence which scrutinizes theevolution of consumers’ behaviour, 57 per cent of Frenchhousekeepers had bought at last one ‘bio’ product in 2003– a low ﬁgure compared with the levels of consumptionin the United Kingdom (80 per cent), Italy and Germany(Dupont, 2002; Amalou and Dupont, 2004).There are several reasons for this stagnation. In the caseof milk, the price of the litre has fallen by 0.02 to 0.08cents since early 2002. Meat proﬁts were 20 per cent to 30per cent less. Producers of poultry, vegetables and fruitssuffered from crises comparable to those affecting theircolleagues in conventional agriculture. However, theredid not seem to be an overproduction, because althoughconsumption of ‘bio’ products was decreasing, it was notmet by French production. In 2002, ironically, 21 million

litres of milk produced in France were ‘declassiﬁed’ and soldthrough conventional outlets, while ‘bio’ products sold inFrance were imported, e.g. fruits, vegetables, cereals andexotic products (Dupont, 2002).Most of stakeholders involved in organic farming andproduction, as well as analysts, agree that the crisis israther a marketing issue; in other words, ‘bio’-productproducers did not have the full capacity to put theseproducts in the conditions when the consumers wantto ﬁnd them. The French group Biolait that collects one-fourth of ‘bio’ milk produced in France failed to impose itsprices to the transformers who went away; henceforth thedeclassiﬁcation of this milk into conventional one, and thecompany Lactalis whose supply broke down, had to importits ‘bio’ milk from Germany (Dupont, 2002).Meanwhile, there are also problems of distribution andprice, as well as certiﬁcation and fraud issues.8.2Distribution of organic or ‘bio’ productsAlthough hyper- and supermarkets are the ﬁrst sellingplaces of ‘bio’ products (52 per cent of purchases are madein these places), the French Carrefour supermarkets sellabout 300 products, while the British Sainsbury plc offera much wider range of 1,200 products. Specialized shopsare also less than 1,000 in France. Consequently customershave some difﬁculties ﬁnding ‘bio’ products in their usualshopping places (Amalou and Dupont, 2004).However, partnerships have been established betweenthese retailers and the farmers. Some farmers are also8 Organic or biological agriculture25trying to diversify their outlets so as not to depend on thesupermarkets only: thus, in France BioBourgogneViandes,created in 1994 near Dijon and comprising some forty cattleraisers, is selling meat to individual clients directly (for an18-kg order, the client pays€12 per kilo and the transportcost). BioBourgogneViandes has also purchased a ﬁrstbutcher’s shop in the central market of Dijon, while thenumber of members grew to 70 by the end of 1999, withan annual turnover of€2.4 million. The cattle raisers ownedfour shops in different villages and were selling, in additionto meat (by correspondence), such biological products aswine, cheese and vegetables. While in 1997, all the meatproduced by BioBourgogneViandes was delivered toAuchan supermarkets, in 1999 only 40 per cent was boughtby the latter and 60 per cent by individual customersthrough the associated butcheries and specialty shops.BioBourgogneViandes claimed it had created jobs in smallvillages and saved businesses (Lorelle, 2000c).8.3PricingThe price of ‘bio’ products remains the principal obstacleto their purchase. According to their survey carried out inOctober 2003 by the review60 millions de

consommateursin France, ‘bio’ products sold in hyper- and supermarketscost 40 per cent to 60 per cent more than conventionalproducts, and 70 per cent to 100 per cent more in open-air markets and specialized shops. It is true that organicfarming needs more labour, particularly for growingvegetables and fruits. Also the small volumes of milkand meat make the harvest, bottling and transportationof these products very costly, because one has to ﬁndthe industrial tools (rather few) that meet the stringentstandards of this form of production. Only ‘bio’ eggs, laidby hens raised in open backyards and fed with foodstuffsderived from organic farming, have met with greatcommercial success (it has been underlined by60 millionsde consommateursthat this way of raising poultry

did notaffect the egg nutritional value or taste) [Dupont, 2002;Amalou and Dupont, 2004].There is also the issue of economies of scale. The high costsof ‘bio’ products and the need to successfully competewith conventional products have led organic farmers inEurope to request assertive policies from the respectivegovernments in favour of organic agriculture, starting witha marked increase in the acreage devoted to it. Germany,Italy, Denmark and Austria have designed public policiesto support the growth of organic farming, while in Franceit has been suggested that the acreage devoted to organicfarming should reach 3 per cent of total arable land, in orderto become economically sound (Dupont, 2002).8.4CertiﬁcationBiological agriculture in the case of France, is submittedto drastic constraints as determined by their agricultureministry. These are:•culture rotation is strongly recommended in order tomaintain soil fertility; animals should not be kept innarrow facilities (e.g. feedlots);•breeds should be adapted to their environment and fedwith products from biological agriculture, i.e. animalﬂours and GMOs are prohibited;•besides vaccination, animals are treated with thehelp of ‘soft’ medicine. Chemical fertilizers, herbicides,insecticides, synthetic fungicides are also prohibited. Theyare replaced by organic fertilizers (manure), guano andmarine algae, plant wastes and rock phosphate.•weeding is manual, mechanical or thermical.•pests are controlled through the use of nets, repellentsand the release of natural predators. Only when agreat threat to the crops exists, chemical pesticides areauthorized.•for those who practise both conventional and biologicalagriculture (half of them in France), the ﬁelds devoted toeach type must be separated and accountability shouldbe distinct; and•two or three years are also needed for convertingfarmland to biological agriculture so as to eliminatechemical residues in the soils. Products sold duringthis period are considered conventional, but the Frenchgovernment has decided to provide ﬁnancial assistancein order to compensate the gap in revenue (Hopquin,2000a).In other words, organic farmers defend an alternativeagricultural, economic and social model. They prohibit theuse of genetically modiﬁed organisms and demand, in casethe ban on transgenic crops is actually lifted in Europe, athreshold of 0.1 per cent for an adventitious presence ofGMOs in their crops, instead of 0.9 per cent as it has beendecided for conventional crops.The requirements for organic farming are applicablethroughout Europe, with some national differencesthat may create distortions in competition. In France,the requirements for livestock husbandry are the moststringent, as all the feed should be produced on the farmitself.The AB logo, which applies to ‘bio’ products in France, canbe applied to non-French organic products provided thatthey meet the national requirements. A common Europeanlogo also exists to label those ‘bio’ products. These logos docertify the mode of production of the product, but not itsquality as does the Red Label in France (Dupont, 2002).Regarding exotic products, they can also be labelled withthe same AB logo, but they raise problems of traceabilityand control. Many developing countries are devotingan increasing acreage of their arable land to organicfarming, as they are attracted by premium prices on theinternational market. This is, for instance, the case of Chile,which has important outlets for its organic products in theEuropean Union and Japan (where Chilean products havegone through the system of certiﬁcation and received the‘bio’ seal). Surinam and Papua New Guinea head the listof African, Caribbean and Paciﬁc (ACP) countries as ‘bio’producers. Demand in the Western countries for organicfruits and vegetables is enticing producers throughout the26ACP countries to be organized and establish their footholdin the market of opportunity. In early October 2001, morethan 170 traders, producers, researchers and supportagencies converged on Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago,to do that at a conference on diversifying regional exportsthrough developing organic agriculture. They came fromCameroon, Malaysia, 17 Caribbean nations and departments,11 countries of Central and South America, and eightcountries of North America and Europe. The conferencelaunched a new study onWorld markets for organic fruitand vegetablesby the FAO, the International Trade Centre ofthe United Nations Conference on Trade and Development(UNCTAD) and World Trade Organization. Debates at theconference led to concrete proposals for national standards,regional certiﬁcation, information services and specialmeasures for smallholders wanting to switch to organicfarming.8.5 Certiﬁed denomination of originThe certiﬁcation of organic or ‘bio’ products is part ofa wider trend that consists of drawing the consumers’attention to the origin and quality of their foodstuffs andbeverages. This trend responds to the concern that qualityis threatened by industrialization of food production andprocessing. Although reaching a high quality standardmay require years of work and great ﬁnancial endeavours,farmers are interested in following suit. In France, forinstance, one-third of farmers, 6,700 companies and6,000 distributors were, in 2001, engaged in ofﬁcialprocedures aimed at certifying their products (Dupont,2001). Certiﬁcation in France deals with the quality andorigin of the product. In addition to the AB label for ‘bio’products, there is the AOC label (appellation d’originecontrolée – certiﬁed denomination of origin) which datesback to 1935; it indicates the provenance of a product whosecharacteristics are associated with the natural environmentand local knowledge. The Red Label, created in 1960, onlyindicates the higher quality of taste of the product, butnot its provenance or mode of production; a transformedproduct with Red Label does not necessarily derive froma raw material of the same quality. Finally, a certiﬁcate ofconformity guarantees, since 1988, the fulﬁlment of a seriesof requirements set up by a group of producers, processorsor distributors; this private logo which entails a fee fromthe petitioner guarantees a constant quality of the product(Dupont, 2001).Over the 1990s, there has been a proliferation of mentionsand signs, ofﬁcial or private, that claim the quality, originor tradition of a wide range of agri-food products. This hasbeen interpreted as the counterweight to the increasingindustrialization of agriculture: in a few decades, theproportion of processed agricultural products purchased byhouseholds rose to 80 per cent and even more. On the otherhand, food crises caused by listeriosis, bovine spongiformencephalopathy (BSE or ‘mad cow’ disease), foot-and-mouthdisease, the suspicion about the effect of heavy metals onhealth as well as about genetically-modiﬁed organisms(GMOs) have provoked an anxiety among consumers whodemand the traceability of their foodstuffs. Farmers whohave been submitted to the successive reforms of thecommon agricultural policy, wish to redeﬁne their identityand role; they consider therefore that being able to tracetheir products and guarantee their quality is an appropriateway to respond to consumers’ expectations. With regard tosupermarkets, they have created brands which refer to thepositive image of well-known production areas and whichare recognized by the demanding consumer as a guaranteeof quality (Faujas, 2004).To be granted an AOC, farmers must adopt a collectiveapproach; they should create a union to defend the product,work together with the enquiry teams of the NationalInstitute of Denomination of Origin (INAO) during three,four or even ten years, and make a lot of efforts and usetheir know-how. From 1997 to 2001, the number of farmershaving adopted this approach increased by 14 per cent,while the total number of farmers decreased by 4 per cent.The approach is rewarding: for instance, the productionof a kind of cheese called ‘morbier’, which was granted anAOC in 2000, doubled in two years and the number of itsmanufacturers rose from 25 to 40; the price of the AOCcheese is 30 per cent higher than that of ordinary cheese.It is also true that granting of an AOC label and the qualityattached to it have an impact on the value of land: theannual price of land planted with olive trees in the region ofNyons (with an AOC label) increased 2 per cent more thanthat of non-AOC land. This enabled the farmers to resist thepressure exerted on land by tourism or urbanization (Faujas,2004).AOC productions cannot be transferred outside their siteof production. The green lentil of Puy or the Roquefortcheese is considered collective property and thus, cannotbe expatriated. This is a major difference with a brand anindustrialist can keep while transferring its production toAsia or Africa to lower manufacturing costs (Faujas, 2004).The trend toward quality and labelling has its limitations.Firstly, there is a risk of confusion among the consumers.The latter may be tempted to choose an imitation ofAOC, less costly. It is the role of the INAO to monitor themarket and make sure that the reputation of a productoriginating from a speciﬁc area is not undermined. It seemsthat in France the volume of AOC products on the marketis close to what this market can absorb. For instance, AOCwines represent 55 per cent of total production; it is notconsidered unreasonable to raise this proportion andconvert all the vineyards to that quality level. The same istrue for poultry, a large part of which is being sold with ared label and an indication of origin (Faujas, 2004).The number of farms selling some 600 AOC products witha protected geographic indication (IGP) was 140,000 outof a total of 650,000 on the French territory (2003). Thesefarms include vineyards, vegetable growers, fruit and olive-tree growers and livestock husbandry. Their number couldstill rise – one farmer out of three could be involved in thiskind of production in the medium term – but this approachcould not be extended to the whole French agriculture(Faujas, 2004).European certiﬁcation includes a certiﬁed protected origin(AOP), the French AOC, as well as the protected geographicindication, which establishes a less strict geographical27relationship than the AOP (Dupont, 2001).In the United Kingdom, a leading company in theproduction of ‘bio’ products is Duchy Originals, foundedby the Prince of Wales and established at the HomeFarm of Tetbury, near the Prince’s residence of Highgrove(Gloucestershire). It sells chocolates, bread, honey, biscuits,cheese, ham, sausages and soft drinks. On 23 March 2004,a new product has been launched: a ‘bio’ shampoo. Thelatter, bearing the logo Houmont, contains rose and lemonessences and will be a strong competitor of Body Shop’scomparable products. It is a joint venture between thePrince of Wales and a famous London-based hairdresser.Duchy Originals is a prosperous enterprise, with a €22-million turnover in 2003-2004 and proﬁt reaching €343,000.The ‘Prince Charles’ label is found in big departmentstores as well as worldwide, particularly in the USA andCommonwealth countries. Beneﬁts are transferred to acharity foundation chaired by the Prince of Wales. Sinceits creation in 1990, about £2 million had been transferredto philanthropic associations by Duchy Originals whichemployed 100 people (Roche, 2004).Ofﬁcial certiﬁcations are facing the competition of privatecertiﬁcations, such as the indication of local or regionalbrands, of provenance, emphatic mentions, which donot necessarily represent a qualitative content or valueand which are not submitted to an independent review.Monitoring and control of ‘bio’ products are carried out inFrance by some thirty certifying bodies, except the AOCswhich are under the control of the National Institute ofDenomination of Origin. All these bodies are authorized bythe state and their action is followed by that of the GeneralDirectorate for Competition, Consumption and FraudRepression (Dupont, 2001).The denomination of origin label (AOC) is not peculiar torich countries. Thus, China, with the assistance of France,has adopted a law on appellations in 2000 and has createdabout 30 AOC labels concerning yellow wine, teas and hamsthat are typical for some regions. Vietnam has followed suitin 2001; the ﬁrst geographic indication regarding the ‘nuocmam of Phu Quoc’ has attracted the interest of Unileverwhich invested $1 million for transferring its production inthat island; since then, the price of this AOC nuoc mam hastrebled. Sixteen countries of West Africa have requestedthe French INAO to identify two products in each of themthat could be certiﬁed. Morocco wants to protect its arganoil (extracted from the seed of the treeArgania spinosa,an endemic species of the south-west of Morocco),whileBolivia wishes to label its wine and quiñoa – a nutritiousseed fromAmaranthus quiñoa– and Brazil wants totag its best wines. These efforts demonstrate that theglobalization of nutrition and food should not necessarilylead to homogenization of products but to the promotionof trade relations that respect nutritional differences andcultures (Faujas, 2004).8.6 SegregationIn the fall of 1999, two French industrial corporations, Glon-Sanders – the leader in animal feed and egg productionin France – and Bourgoin – the European leader in poultryproduction – decided to set up a non-genetically-modiﬁed(GM) soybean chain, through which this legume wastraced during the whole transformation process, fromthe seeds to the eggs and poultry sold to retailers. Elevencooperatives, including 2,000 farmers and representing12,000 hectares, responded positively to both industrialistsin order to produce the so-called ‘soja du pays’ (genuinelocal soybeans). In 1999, the expected harvest was 50,000tons of beans (i.e. 20 per cent of French production) andin 2000 more than 100,000 tons. The soybean meal (i.e.crushed soybeans the oil of which is extracted) or extrudedbeans (i.e. soybeans processed to make them digestible)would be used to feed poultry, sold under the Duc labelas well as laying hens (Lorelle, 1999a,b). It involved twoproduction zones were concerned: one in the south-westof France, including eight cooperatives and the company,Céréol, which processes soybeans into meal; the second inBurgundy, including three cooperatives and the companyExtrusel, specialized in the production of extruded seeds.In order to mitigate the risk of contamination of locally-produced soybeans by imported US beans, a cooperativefrom Castelnaudary (southwest of France) the GroupeOccitan, checked the French origin of seeds, isolated theproduction plots, stored the harvested beans separatelyuntil they were delivered. Regarding Extrusel, a subsidiaryof four grain cooperatives of Burgundy and Franche-Comtéand of two livestock-feed producers of Saône-et-Loire, itproduced 20,000 tons of extruded soybeans per annum(annual turnover of about $6.2 million). Extruded soybeansare a very digestible feed which supplies both proteinsand fats and is incorporated into poultry and hog rations.In February 1999, Extrusel made the decision to only usesoybeans of which the non-GM status could be guaranteed.During the spring of 1999, 8,000 hectares were sown withsoybeans that were certiﬁed as non-genetically-modiﬁedby about one thousand farmers; this acreage representedthe whole cultivated area between the cities of Belfort andMâcon. A fully operational traceability system was set upfrom the farm to the client. Part of the beans was producedin the company’s station and the rest was bought fromoutside suppliers with guaranteed origin, so as to be inconformity with Extrusel ISO 9002 standards (Bréhier, 1999).Farmers who subscribed to this new productive ventureand who harvested their ﬁrst non-GM soybeans in the1999 fall, sold their product at 1,100 Francs per ton (about$177), compared with 1,000 Francs per ton of ‘ordinary’soybeans and 1,300 Francs per ton of beans used for humanconsumption (Lorelle, 1999b).Bourgoin imposed additional constraints on the farmersthat produced the ‘soja du pays’. They must not usegenetically modiﬁed soybeans and they should trace theproduction of the beans at all stages of the process, theymust grow them at a certain distance of pollution sites(e.g. chemical factories and incineration centres whichcould generate dioxin residues) and should refrain fromspreading sludge originating from wastewater treatment.Certiﬁed poultry represented almost 85 per cent of annualtotal turnover of Bourgoin-Duc, and through the company’sdecision not to use transgenic soybeans it wished toanticipate consumers’ demand. Bourgoin-Duc had alreadyprohibited the use of transgenic maize since 1996 in thefeed used for poultry. In addition Bourgoin had tried, with28food distributors such as Carrefour, to set up non-GMsoybean production chains in the USA and Brazil (Lorelle,1999a).In addition to Glon-Sanders’ poultry and eggs, labelled as‘biologically produced’ and qualiﬁed as high-quality andrather expensive products, French consumers could buyanother type of product labelled ‘soja du pays’. But for thiskind of poultry, fed with non-GMOs and offering a goodsafety, the consumer had to pay more (Lorelle, 1999a).8.7Fraud

Biological agriculture is not free from criticism because offraud. By early 2000, in France, the agriculture ministry’sDirectorate-General for Competition, Consumption andFraud Repression carried out an enquiry on false biologicalcereals. About a dozen important operators were involvedin the following trafﬁc: a dealer buys conventional cerealsand establishes forged certiﬁcates that qualify them asderived from biological agriculture; the cereals are soldas ‘bio’ products either to feed producers or directly tolivestock raisers. As the selling price of ‘bio’ cereals couldbe twofold of that of conventional cereals, the illegal proﬁtcould vary from 1 Franc to 50 centimes per kilo, and becauseof the volumes concerned the beneﬁts could be very high.The French authorities discovered an international networkinvolving in particular Italian capital. Conventional cerealswere sometimes purchased in France and shipped – reallyor virtually – to Italy, Belgium or the Netherlands, fromwhere they returned with the ‘bio’ label. Another trafﬁcwas initiated in Central Europe, particularly in Romania orUkraine, and the cereals were transferred to France. On 23March 2000, the French inspectors spotted a society basedin Brittany (Carhaix), Eurograin, which they suspected ofhaving marketed 50,000 tons of cereals of doubtful originin 1998 and 1999. Earlier, on 3 March 2000, a public enquiryhad been opened in the Vienne Department regarding12,000 tons of cereals commercialized by Bio Alliance, acompany based in Chasseneuil-du-Poitou. Its manager wascondemned for having unduly used a ‘bio’ label on bovinemeat. Another enquiry concerned the shipment of theCeltic Ambassador, a boat inspected in 1997 in Bordeaux;the 4,500 tons of cereals found in the boat ofﬁciallyoriginated from Romania, and had been certiﬁed ‘bio’ in theNetherlands. The enquiry showed that the shipment hadbeen made at Fos-sur-Mer, in the southeast of France, andthat the cereals were conventional French ones (Hopquin,2000a).Similar trafﬁcking may crop up. It underlines the limitationsof the certifying bodies, in charge of controlling thefulﬁlment of biological agriculture requisites through twoannual visits without warning. There were three certifyingorganisms in France. The most important one, Ecocert,covered 80 per cent of the market; by mid-1999, it wasable to detect pesticide traces in animal feed produced byCentral Soya, a neighbour and client of Eurograin. Ecocertthen alerted the certifying organism of Eurograin, Afaq-Ascert, which had been controlling this company since 1998.Many ofﬁcials have recommended the stricter enforcementof biological agriculture requisites, considered as too loose(Hopquin, 2000a).Fraud and the subsequent mistrust could also explainthe relative slump in the consumption of ‘bio’ products.Another explanation of this decrease is the competitionamong quality labels as well as the trend toward a moreenvironment-friendly agriculture (‘rational’ agriculture’)that may kidnap the image relating to organic farming(Dupont, 2001).8.8 ‘Rational’ agriculture“Rational” agriculture’s goal is to make a compromisebetween productivity and environment conservation. InFrance, the terms of reference of this mode of agriculturalproduction contain 98 points relating to the improvementof agricultural practices (better use of pesticides andrecycling of wastes, improvement of sanitation, preciserecording of farmer’s practices, better prevention of animaldiseases) and upkeep of farm economic proﬁtability(Dupont, 2003).A key issue of conventional agriculture is the better andmore effective use of fertilizers by crops. Increasing theabsorption and assimilation of macronutrients suchas nitrogen fertilizers would therefore contribute todecreasing the percentage of these fertilizers not used byplants and therefore to drastically reduce soil and waterpollution by nitrogen compounds. In this regard the workby Shuichi Yanagisawa and colleagues of the Universitiesof Okayama and Tokyo, published in the Proceedings ofthe National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on 18 May 2004could be very promising. The Japanese researchers wereable to incorporate into the genome of Arabidopsis thalianaa gene from maize that improves nitrogen assimilationin this crop species. The gene transferred, Dof1, does notonly control the synthesis of a protein, but also a seriesof genetic regulations involved in the constitution of theplant’s ‘skeleton’. In Arabidopsis thaliana, indeed, Dof1has modiﬁed the expression of several genes: amino-acidconcentration has increased, that of glucose was loweredcompared with control plants, but not that of sucrose. Butthe most striking modiﬁcation concerned the growth of thetransgenic plants in an environment with limited amountsof nitrogen: control plants showed symptoms of deﬁciencysuch as blemished leaves, while transgenic plants lookednormal. As a follow-up to the experiment on Arabidopsisthaliana, Dof1 has been transferred to potato plants bythe Japanese workers; as a result, the amount of aminoacids in the genetically modiﬁed plants increased. Thisresult is promising, because potatoes are not very efﬁcientin absorbing and assimilating nitrogen compounds;henceforth the need to add such fertilizers to this crop(Morin, 2004).Increasing biological nitrogen ﬁxation (instead of nitrogenfertilizer inputs) is also an objective of ‘rational’ agriculture.Legumes are able to ﬁx atmospheric nitrogen thanks tosymbiotic bacteria living in their root nodules (Rhizobium)and they need much less nitrogen fertilizers than othercrop species. An international consortium is carrying outthe sequencing of the genome of the annual alfalfa species,Medicago truncatula, considered as a model legume. Thisgenomics work is to be ﬁnalized in 2007, but preliminaryresults already showed that the genomes of legumes were29remarkably conserved, i.e. the gene sequence is quite similaramong the different species. About 500 genes have beenidentiﬁed as related to the symbiotic relationship betweenthe legume and its rhizobia. Legume geneticists also hopeto unravel the role of the Nod factor, a molecule identiﬁedby the researchers of the French National AgriculturalResearch Institute (INRA) in Toulouse; it has been shownthat one-tenth of mg of this substance per hectare wassufﬁcient to raise soybean yields by 11 per cent (Morin,2004).Although the transfer of biological nitrogen ﬁxation tocereals is considered a remote possibility because it wouldinvolve the transfer of a few hundred genes, the immediatepriority is to select the most effective legume speciesand varieties using genetic methods, so as to raise thepercentage of peas, lupins and horsebeans grown in Europeas feed and consequently decrease the dependence ofEuropean countries on the imports of soybeans for animalfeed (70 per cent of animal feed proteins were imported in2004) from the USA, Brazil and Argentina. Another objectiveof the selection of more effective nitrogen-ﬁxing legumespecies and varieties is to reduce water and soil pollutioncaused by nitrogen fertilizers (nitrates) , as well as the fossilenergy needed to produce these fertilizers: to produceand spray one ton of fertilizers, two tons of oil are needed(Morin, 2004).On 8 January 2003, at the Forum of ‘rational’ agriculture,its president, Christiane Lambert, indicated that between5,000 and 10,000 pioneers of ‘rational’ agriculture (outof over 650,000 farms in France) were willing to move tothis type of agriculture. However, the main trade unionof non-intensive farming, opposed to transgenic crops,the Confédération paysanne, highlighted that half of therequirements of ‘rational’ agriculture in fact correspondedto just the compliance with current regulations. Theconsumers’ association UFC- Que choisir? did supportthe terms of reference, while the National Federationof Biological Agriculture (FNAB) was concerned about aconfusion between the products of ‘rational’ agricultureand ‘bio’ products. Others fear that food processors anddistributors may request the farmers to adopt ‘rational’agriculture without any ﬁnancial compensation, and mayconsequently neglect the farmers that do not move towardthis mode of production. On 4 March 2003, a NationalCommission for Rational Agriculture and Qualiﬁcation ofFarms (CNARQE) has been set up in order to gradually enlistthe farms devoted to this type of agriculture (Dupont, 2003).While trying to regulate the so-called ‘rational’ agriculture,the French government wants to foster ‘organic’ agriculture.On 2 February 2004, the minister of agriculture announceda plan aimed at doing so. About €50 million over a ﬁve-year period were to be allocated to organic farmers. Inaddition, communication activities requiring a €4.5-millioninvestment over three years aimed at clarifying the AB labelwhich did not seem to be well understood by the consumer.This label means an alternative system of production thatdoes not use chemicals, relies on antibiotics on a limitedscale for livestock, that implies an extensive type ofagriculture and includes crop rotations. It markets productsthat are certiﬁed to contain 95 per cent of ingredientsderived from processes excluding the use of syntheticchemicals. But the ‘bio’ label does not mean a superior tasteor any health beneﬁt (Amalou and Dupont, 2004).About €10.8 million over three years aimed at strengtheningthe downstream part of ‘organic’ agriculture, which ishandicapped by the low volumes of production andthe dispersion of producers on the French territory. Inaddition, biological or organic agriculture will be promotedin agricultural education and research. The NationalFederation of Biological Agriculture (FNAB) welcomed thegovernmental measures, but organic farmers stressed thatthey were not receiving ﬁnancial aid aimed at this kindof agriculture in the very short term, like other Europeanproducers (Amalou and Dupont, 2004).